“It was all eyes on South Carolina, but more importantly, the Jim Clyburn endorsement. That wasn’t a sure thing. Clyburn had some concessions including the fact that he wanted Joe Biden to nominate a black Supreme Court justice.”
Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen co-authored Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency, their third such collaboration. Parnes is the senior correspondent at The Hill where she covers the Biden White House and national politics. Allen is a senior political analyst at NBC News Digital, and is a winner of the Dirksen and Hume awards for reporting.
Despite receiving over 7 million more total votes, Joe Biden ultimately won the 2020 presidential election by margins even thinner than by which Trump won in 2016. This is due to the nature of the Electoral College and the role a handful of swing states play. Republicans took a laser-focused approach to deciding and executing a path victory whereas Democrats created several paths. For Democrats, the race was much closer than they ever expected. “If 22K of Biden’s voters [across GA, WI and AZ] had flipped to the other side, Donald Trump is president again.”
Early in the Democratic Primary, Biden didn’t receive significant support from the establishment in which he’d been such a powerful figure. Biden effectively navigated the Democratic Primary by placing himself between the far left wing of his party and Donald Trump, ultimately lifting himself above the fray at times. Biden performed badly in the early states and was desperate to get to his firewall state, South Carolina, where Jim Clyburn’s endorsement gave Biden’s campaign a much needed boost. “Clyburn had some concessions including the fact that he wanted Joe Biden to nominate a black Supreme Court justice.”
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKERS
Jonathan Allen
Senior Political Analyst
NBC News
Amie Parnes
Senior Correspondent
The Hill
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darcie: (00:07)
Hello everyone. And welcome back to salt talks. My name is John Darcie. I'm the managing director of salt, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance technology and public policy. Salt talks are a digital interview series with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And our goal on these salt talks is the same as our goal at our salt conferences, which is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future. And we're very excited today to welcome two co-authors to salt talks who wrote a brilliant book about the 2020 election. Uh, those guests are Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnas. Um, Jonathan is a senior political analyst at NBC news digital, a winner of the Dirksen and humor awards for reporting. He was previously the white house bureau chief for Politico and the Washington bureau chief for Bloomberg news.
John Darcie: (01:01)
He appears, appears regularly on national television television programs and as the author of multiple books, including his most recent book, lucky that we're going to talk about today. Uh, Amy is the senior correspondent for the hill newspaper in Washington, where she covers the Biden white house and national politics. She was previously a staff writer at Politico where she covered the Senate, the 2008 presidential election and the Obama white house. She also appears regularly on national television television programs. And as the co-author of the book that I mentioned previously called lucky, uh, hosting today's talk is Anthony Scaramucci. He's the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge capital as well as the chairman of salts. And with no further ado, I'll turn it over to you, Anthony, to begin the interview.
Anthony Scaramucci: (01:47)
Well, first of all, guys, thank you so much for joining and you, you know, I'm not that self promotional, right? So look at me holding the book up here for everybody to say. So a book is a brilliantly written. It is a great narrative and it's a page Turner. You can't get to the end of the chapter without wanting to take a peek into the next chapter. And so even though people know the ending of this book, uh, it's, it's a very compelling story. So I want to start with you, Amy. Uh, why did you title the book? Lucky? Why was Joe Biden? Lucky?
Amie Parnes: (02:21)
That's a very good question, Anthony. And thank you for having us. Um, I think that it's funny, John and I got into a little bit of a back and forth over lucky. Um, but I think, you know, cause some people say, what do you mean lucky? What do you mean he barely won? Um, and I think they're looking really at the popular vote. You know, everyone is so proud of the 81 million number, but what John and I do is we take a closer look, we take you inside the campaign, obviously, but in the very end, um, the margins were a lot tighter than even 2016 and Joe Biden ended up winning by 43,000 votes. So when people say 81 million that's it's right, but it's not really accurate about how we run our electoral system, which runs on the electoral college. Um, and so that was actually ended up to be a very tight election of me end
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:12)
43,000 votes. And just for our listeners, uh, you're talking about swing, state electoral activity on the margin he won by 43,000 votes in approximately four states. Is that
Jonathan Allen: (03:26)
Yeah, it's three states is Georgia, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, um,
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:32)
Thousand in Georgia. And what were the totals in Arizona and Wisconsin? Roughly 15. Yeah.
Jonathan Allen: (03:37)
Yeah, roughly roughly 15. Each one of the states was a quarter of a point. One was a third of a point. One was two thirds of a point. Um, you know, we're talking about an election where 158 million people voted, you're talking about Trump needed 43,000 more to win or that they think about it differently. If 22,000, essentially 21,000 of Biden's voters in those three states had flipped to the other side, Donald Trump's president. Again,
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:03)
It's interesting. Cause I, you know, I recommended the book over the weekend, just holding it up again, lucky, um, how Joe Biden barely won the presidency. I recommended it to Dick Gephardt over the weekend because it's, it's a compelling story, but it also tells you how razor thin things are in the United States. And before we get into the nits of the book, I just wanted to ask you a quick question about the Republican strategy because you know, Jonathan, it seems like the Republicans have read your book or knew the book because they're sitting there with the 43,000 votes and Lindsey Graham saying Trump plus a and his idea is Trump plus will get us back to the presidency and possibly retaking the house, the notion that they can dig up instead of expanding the base, they want to dig deeper into the base, uh, and find more and more quote unquote maggot people. What's your reaction to that?
Jonathan Allen: (04:58)
I mean, I think Lindsey Graham is as often he is reacting to the moment I was skeptical of the degree to which Donald Trump could be successful in a second presidential election by finding more of the mag of people. I mean, like I just dig deeper, seem to me to be a bad way to go about winning an election, uh, after the last time. And yet he expanded his electrode significantly, or I should say deepened, his electrode significantly 74 million votes this time. Uh, it had been 62 million, I think the previous time it's just that the democratic side grew so much, but one thing Republicans are very good at is understanding the rules of the game that they're playing. And if a presidential election of an electoral college, uh, game is essentially a chess match, there are a lot of Democrats that are trying to win by kicking field goals.
Jonathan Allen: (05:49)
They're like how many voters can we get? And we see what goes on in these two camps that Democrats are always talking about. Here are three or four paths that we could take to win the electoral college majority. And the Trump side is always talking about what is the path that's most likely, how and how do we optimize that pack? And this time the Democrats won, but I think most Americans were surprised by the closest to the race. If they looked at it, it took four days to call this racing. I mean, and anybody who says this wasn't a close race is not close to what was going on inside the campaigns where both of them between 9:00 PM and 11:00 PM on election night, didn't know how it was going to come out until Fox called Arizona, which changed things a little.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:32)
Yeah. And they stayed with that call, which I thought was interesting despite the pressure from, uh, uh, the president's campaign. Um, you know, it's interesting because the last time I spoke to president Trump, I can tell you it was, uh, Easter Sunday. Uh, it was April 21st, 2019. He was yelling at me saying, cause I had just written a article that the press was not the enemy of the people. I know you two don't look like the enemy to me. I wrote an article. It was, it was published in the hill. Uh, he yelled at me and he said something to me, Seminole, that I'll share with you. He said, yeah. I said, well, sir, aren't you trying to expand the base and go after independence and moderates? He said, no, I'm working on the base. I'll let everything else take care of itself. It was an interesting strategy as you point out, he almost won it using that strategy. Uh, but let me ask you, do you think that, uh, Joe, Amy, do you think that Joe Biden would have one without the pandemic, without the widespread mail-in voting?
Amie Parnes: (07:33)
I think it's something that definitely contributed to his win. Um, and I think as we reported in the book, what's really interesting is we have a lot of, obviously on Joe Biden, but we have a lot on Donald Trump too. And, um, there was a point in February of 20, 20 last year when Brad Parscale Trump's campaign manager went up to him in the oval and basically said, this pandemic is going to be your undoing and Trump didn't ticket seriously. And he said, what do you mean this has nothing to do with politics. Um, and so you look at a moment like that and it's sort of revealing, um, on one hand I think the Biden campaign kind of took advantage of it. Um, they used it to their advantage by kind of keeping him, um, inside and, um, you know, parading the whole, which, which was, is the right thing to do obviously, but parading it around like he's inside and he's, he's taking all the health precautions. Um, but I think we have a quote in the book, um, that talks about Anita Dunn telling an associate COVID is the best thing that ever happened to him because what it did was it essentially, um, kept him off the campaign trail. And, um, we all know that he is prone to making gaps and this sort of kept him from doing that and kind of embarrassing himself, which is a concern that a lot of Democrats had at the time,
Jonathan Allen: (08:55)
From there on conversely you've got, uh, president Trump out there everyday, um, you know, taking charge and, uh, and telling people that they should inject disinfected. Um, you know, th th he had those daily briefings from the white house when, at a time when even the scientists were in some disagreement about where this thing was headed and what to do about it. And there's the president giving advice like, um, you know, as if you were an epidemiologist, uh, but an epidemiologist who's giving bad advice. And so it highlights that the sort of, uh, contrast that Biden would want, which is Biden is not out there making mistakes. And Trump is out there making mistakes.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:33)
So, you know, before facing off with Donald Trump Biden struggled, and th this is a great part of the book, which, uh, I was actually reading last night, he's getting destroyed in places like Iowa, New Hampshire. And now he's coming down to the quote unquote firewall. Tell us about that situation. Tell us about that seminal moment, which seems like it was the huge inflection point in his ascendancy to the presidency.
Amie Parnes: (10:03)
Well, he, um, he obviously wasn't doing so well. We all know that he was losing an Iowa came in fourth, came in fifth to New Hampshire. There was a moment in time where they actually discussed whether he should refinance his house because they were running out of money. I think at the low point, they had 1.5 million, which is not a lot of money to run a campaign. And so they, you know, even Biden was sort of trying to convince people to hang on, obviously his aids, where he told his own wife, Jill Biden, hang on until South Carolina hang on. Um, so obviously he had a lot of doubters around him. Um, but so he gets to, he goes to Nevada, he comes in second, he goes to South Carolina and it's all eyes sort of on that state, but more importantly, the Jim Cliburn endorsement. And that, wasn't a sure thing as we reported the book, um, he, Jim Cliburn had some concessions, including the fact that he wanted Joe Biden to, uh, nominee a Supreme, a black Supreme court justice.
Amie Parnes: (11:06)
And, um, so everyone's watching this debate play out, um, in South Carolina, Jim Cliburn is in the audience. And one of the best scenes, I think one of my favorite students in the book is Jim Cliburn sitting there watching Joe Biden. Um, he hasn't yet said in this debate that he's his intentions about nominating a black Supreme court justice. So during the commercial break, um, Kleiber dashes out of his seat and his colleagues think that he just has to go to the bathroom really badly, turns out he's making a beeline for Joe Biden, and he wants to talk to Biden about why he hasn't done that, why he hasn't had that moment yet. Um, and so we kind of take you behind the scenes of how Joe Biden was able to get the, the pivotal Cliburn endorsement, which key to sort of turning around his campaign. We think that obviously Joe Biden would have won South Carolina, but the collaborate endorsement made it, um, it, it gave him sort of the gravitas to go forward and keep going and win ultimately, and super cheap on super Tuesday.
Anthony Scaramucci: (12:10)
So let's talk about the left though. You know, I don't want to call it the radical left, but let's just call it the left side of the democratic party. Um, he's, you know, uh, vice and now president Biden's sought to downplay that portion of the party. Um, tell us about that. What was your experience there? You write some great stories in there about AOC, et cetera. Um, how was he able to pull that off and where do you think it goes now that he's in the presidency? Is he going to be able to contain what I would say is the hard left side of his party?
Jonathan Allen: (12:44)
That's a great question, Anthony. I mean, early on, you've got, uh, you've got Biden asking his advisors before he gets in, and we write about this in the book, ask them, you know, if I miss my moment, has the party moved so far to the left of me, that as it left me is looking at these voices, Bernie Sanders, I was Andrew Ocasio Cortez, and he's thinking like the movement within the democratic party, the activism, the volume is coming from a place that's, you know, significantly to Biden's left. Um, and I think that what you see from him is a very artful, you know, we would have called it in the old days, triangulation where he's able to use the left part of his party to like distance from them. And at the same time distances from Trump and can put himself in the middle and a little bit above it all.
Jonathan Allen: (13:29)
Um, and, uh, you know, it ends up, I think it's very difficult to win a democratic party, a direct democratic primary without being in touch with, uh, with activists on the left, unless you've got like an unusual coalition, his coalition was moderate white people and black people of all sort of all political, uh, beliefs. Um, and that turned out to be strong enough to get him through the, the primary. It gets to the general. He distances continues to descend from the left. I mean, here's a guy saying I'm not going to say it to fund the police. And there's a big argument about that within his campaign. Here's a guy saying Bernie is too far out. So spinning a board a little bit. He's going to have a little, he's going to have a problem because he had a friendly in Bernie Sanders, um, and had a friendly on, on the left side during this election, they basically stuffed their priorities into the back seat to get Joe Biden elected. And right now there's a little bit of a honeymoon period, but that's not going to last forever. So
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:29)
What happens, Amy? It can, he, can he corral them?
Amie Parnes: (14:35)
Um, it's, it's too soon to say Anthony. I mean, I think that what we've seen lately is, um, a party that is still very much divided. And so I think, um, what's fascinating about this book, I think is that it not only is a post-mortem, uh, um, the campaign, but it is sort of like a guidebook for both parties, I think, to learn what went wrong, what happened and how you play it forward to 2022 and 2024, because you take Donald Trump out of the picture. And I think it's a whole different ball game. Um, you know, obviously I think a lot of people were inspired to run, to vote against Donald Trump. I'm not sure that they'll have that sort of weapon if you will, next time.
Anthony Scaramucci: (15:22)
So let, let let's talk about the, the upcoming election, the congressional election, uh, because you do write about that, you know, the trajectory of the American electorate. So what do you guys think happens in the midterms? Let's start with you, Jonathan.
Jonathan Allen: (15:39)
Well, I mean, the easy bet to take would be that the Republicans pick up seats, uh, certainly in the house, uh, probably retake the house just on the historical basis of the first midterm after, after a new president. But even more than that, what we saw was Biden didn't really have coattails. Um, and so what you saw down ballot was Republicans winning a lot of state legislative races, which means they're going to be in a better position. Um, as, uh, the parties redraw, the states redraw their congressional districts. I mean, the Republicans should be able to squeeze at least several seats out of that. So for the Democrats to win in the midterms and keep control of the house, they're going to have to figure out how to sell something to the public even better than they did last time. The good thing they have going for them is that, uh, what you've seen is a push of educated voters into the democratic party at the same time that non-college educated voters have moved into the Republican party and you are much more likely to vote in a midterm if you're college educated and has been consistent over the course of time.
Jonathan Allen: (16:38)
So there are a lot of competing, um, sort of pressures or sort of factors that will go into it. Um, but you know, I would have to just bet from today that it's more likely that the Republicans pick up seats in the house. You gotta look at the Senate map, you know, state by state. We don't know who's running it. Um, so, but at 50 50, that could go either way.
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:00)
Is Trump running again? Let's start with you, Amy.
Amie Parnes: (17:05)
Um, I don't think so. Although I, I, it asked me tomorrow. I feel like it changes day by day. I mean, I just, I think obviously there's room for him to run again, but I think, um, four years is a long time. I know it's still the party of Trump. I know Trump will be around for a long time. I just might. My hunch has to know what do you think, John?
Jonathan Allen: (17:30)
Uh, I I'll take the other side of that a little bit in that. Uh, I think he's running until he's not. Um, I think all of these people that get to that level look, Joe Biden. This is the third time he ran for president. As we write in the book, there were several other times that he didn't run, but thought about running. You get that taste in your mouth and it's real hard to get rid of it. Of course, we should defer to Anthony who's, who knows Donald Trump better than we do.
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:56)
I'm too much money guy. So of course he's going to run in the beginning. I mean, he has to, I mean, he wants to, uh, take his name off of Republican party fundraising because he wants to target his name for his own fundraising because that's his personality and he never made more money than he did after the election. So the whole ruse and the lie and all that stuff related to the, uh, the post election theatrically, um, you know, made him a couple of hundred million dollars and he's never made money like that before. So I think he will run again. Um, when, when, when you interview American people, not just the sources that you have inside the political arena or the business arena, but just the average Americans, because you guys do a lot of that in your field research, uh, you know, the polls say that 50 million or so people believe that the election was fraudulent. What is your reaction to that? Is that something you found in your research when you're doing a book like this, and what do you say to people about whether or not the election was a free and fair non fraudulent election?
Amie Parnes: (19:03)
It's amazing to me that people actually think that. And I think John and I had a very, um, you know, really personal kind of conversation about it, um, right after the 6th of January. Um, because as we were writing this book, I think we had some concerns that people might, uh, perceive lucky to be. Um, you know, president Trump could run with that and say, see, it was, it was all luck. It wasn't really, this wasn't really set in stone and he didn't really win. Um, so I think that part is very interesting. I think what we had to make clear in this book was that, uh, Joe Biden and we do so in our authors note, right before you even enter the first page of the book, but you sort of see that we've kind of set the ground and said, Joe Biden actually really did win this race. Um, there wasn't any fraud and we kind of wanted to say that right away before people misinterpreted what we were trying to say, because I think
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:01)
Is that the people that are reading your book know that there was no fraud. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? It's like the people that are out there in that ether, if you will, you know, yeah.
Jonathan Allen: (20:11)
The million people is amazing Anthony and how to reach those people, you know? And when we, you know, when we do, when we do reporting and obviously because of, COVID less like less able to do that toward the end of the selection we have in the past, you've talked to people, we'll have a wide variety of beliefs and some of them have a wide variety of things that they say to people that say to reporters that they don't actually believe or that they question, but would, you know, they like to be on that, that side, you know, sort of publicly. And I think that some of those 50 million probably understand that Trump lost the election and there wasn't fraud.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:44)
Amy, there's a juicy story that guys left on the cutting room floor. Okay. And I'm sure there is a, that you guys, it's a great book, but you can't fit everything in and tell us something really juicy that you guys decided to leave out of the book.
Amie Parnes: (20:59)
Oh gosh. Well, you know, what was really tricky about this book, Anthony, is that we had 25 candidates to focus on. So there was a lot, um, you know, it's hard to cover and write a book when you're focused on so many people and we had to winnow them down. I'm trying to think, John, do you have a good anecdote? Um, something that we,
Jonathan Allen: (21:19)
I think w we cut, we actually cut out, um, a fair amount of, uh, the machinations around Pete Buddha, judge getting out of the race, which I thought was interesting. Um, you know, we kept in sort of the important parts of every moment
Anthony Scaramucci: (21:37)
Mayor budaj coming out of the race was a big moment because he was able to flip a lot of his voters over to the vice-president, right. Or
Jonathan Allen: (21:43)
Now, I mean, when you saw that coalescing right before super Tuesday, uh, it was because people would have judge and Amy Klobuchar got out because Beto O'Rourke endorsed Joe Biden because Barack Obama really, because Barack Obama got off the sidelines, um, and sort of pushing behind the scenes for people to get behind Biden. So, uh, we cut out some of the discussion that, that Buddha judge had with his staff and the sort of the evolution, the reality, the realization of reality, that he could only hurt himself by continuing to run, um, because he wasn't going to win the nomination. Uh, he might win a couple more states, you know, build this political operational a little bit more, but he would be seen as selfish if he stayed in. And we, we caught a little bit of that out just for essentially just for space. Um, but watching the machinations of Buddha judge, I think is really interesting because he is somebody who understands politics very, very well and is pretty cold, such a hard word, but he's pretty cold about the calculations of it all. And you could, you could see that and we cut some of it out. You
Anthony Scaramucci: (22:46)
Have to be a little bit cold speaking about cold. Let's go to the Obama Biden relationship. Okay. So it's a good segue. So tell us about that. Tell us, tell our listeners and viewers something about the Obeid in, excuse me, the Obama Biden relationship that they wouldn't necessarily know unless they've read your book or had your research behind it.
Amie Parnes: (23:08)
Um, I think it's a fascinating relationship, a complicated one. I do think they genuinely like each other, but the caveat as we record in the book, there's so much there. Um, I guess we should start with the fact that Obama sort of, uh, kept Biden out of the race in 2016. So that's in the back of his mind, but you know, when Biden even enters the race, he says, I asked my former partner, president Obama, not to endorse me. And what we learn is that that conversation never happened. And it's something that Biden repeatedly says throughout the campaign. I asked him not to Norse me. Um, but Obama people were kind of scratching their heads about that because that never happened. Um, we also reported the book, a really fascinating anecdote about, um, Obama going to speak to some black donors. He's close with a few of them.
Amie Parnes: (24:01)
He feels a little loose in the room. He feels like he can open up and tell them what exactly he thinking. And so they're asking him, what do you think about the horse race? Who's up, who's down. And, um, what are you, what are your thoughts? And he sort of gives a very long sermon about Elizabeth Warren, um, and it's, uh, kind of endorsing her without endorsing her. And he doesn't really say much about Kamala Harris. He, he bashes eat a little bit, um, and calls him short and gay, um, you know, sort of razzing him a little bit. And then the kicker, I think the fascinating part about this whole talk is that he forgets Biden and he has to be reminded by a donor in the room that he has forgotten by it. And someone actually said he forgot about it. Um, which kind of gives you a window into his thinking in that moment in the fall of 2019 as this election is heating up. But
Jonathan Allen: (24:57)
There are so many ways in this book that you see Anthony that Obama doesn't think that Biden's very good at politics and Biden. Doesn't think that Obama is very good at politics. Um,
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:08)
You know, I, I'm just giving you my observation, knowing some, a little bit about both of them and the vice-president obviously now president came to my, came to our conference a few years ago and I I've known president Obama dating back to law school. Uh, there's a discipline chasm there between the two candidates, you know, w w you know, I can't tell you, you know, how wide that chasm is because it's wider than the grand canyon. One is a Malaprop stir improvisational guy, you know, very chummy. And the other guy is a lot like mayor Pete, Buddha, judge, you know, he's very, you know, he's like a laser, you know, he's a, uh, he's the American sniper, uh, politics, and he's very disciplined. So I think that's where some of the tension is. That's my opinion. What's your reaction to that?
Jonathan Allen: (25:54)
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I mean, they look at each other, they don't, they kind of don't understand each other, right? Like Obama beach Biden in 2008, Biden gets like 1% in Iowa. Obama was like, this guy is going to not do me any damage. If I put them on my ticket, he'll balance my ticket. Is it like an old white guy that people think is like relatively avuncular, he's not a problem for me, you know? And nobody's going to pay attention with the vice-president says anyway, so like, he's good for me. He's helpful. Fine. Looks at Obama. And he's like, this guy's like so cold. There's no, like, there's no feel to them. There's no touch. There's no love that. Like sort of political glad-handing. I mean, you're absolutely right, Anthony, these, these guys couldn't be more different than what's interesting. We write this in the book, but like, they basically see their mentor and mentee, but they disagree on which one's the mentor, which one's the mentee
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:42)
Generational issue there as well. I have to speaking of generational issues, I have to turn it over to John Dorsey so that we can get the ratings up. Okay. Because he gets fan mail and it's horrifying. Amy, I got to tell you it's hurt my self esteem and my, my ego, you know, how shy and reserved I am. You you've seen that in action. So go ahead, Darcie. I know you're dying to ask some questions here,
Jonathan Allen: (27:10)
Alpha, alpha coming in. Yeah, that's exactly right now in your generation alpha squared. This
Anthony Scaramucci: (27:20)
SOP, go ahead, Darcie, go ahead. I know you're dying. I may ask the questions. So I just
John Darcie: (27:24)
Want to pry a little bit more on the Obama piece. Cause I found that one of the most fascinating aspects of the book is, you know, you dove deeper into this, uh, you know, the fact that they weren't really seeing eye to eye in this book that I've ever read previously, there was some indication in 2016 that Obama discouraged Biden from running in that election. Uh, and there's some indication that he wasn't keen on Biden running in 2020 and casting a shadow across the party. Again, do you think that's accurate based on your reporting that Obama basically didn't want Biden out there damaging his own legacy by running in these elections?
Amie Parnes: (27:59)
Yeah. I mean, we have a meeting very early on where he calls Obama calls somebody and aids to his office and wants to know more about the campaign and how they're going to run the campaign and what the tone is going to be. Like. He basically is worried that the campaign will not only embarrass Joe Biden and he he'll embarrass himself, but he'll embarrass and tarnish the Obama legacy. Um, and so we take you inside that meeting. It's actually a really fascinating one where, you know, you're kind of seeing what's on the former president's mind as Joe Biden is thinking about entering. And I always think that Biden kind of felt a little hurt by the fact that, um, Obama kind of checked him out of the race. He always sort of felt like Hillary Clinton was a horrible candidate. He said as much as we report as much of the book, um, he was helping, he actually offered advice to Bernie Sanders at the time about how to beat Hillary Clinton. And so, um, that is a really fascinating angle that he, he kind of felt a little bit, um, miffed by being kind of kept out. And he was also annoyed with Hillary at the time who he felt box to now. Um, he L already, uh, she had already locked down all of his donors and, um, Hillary was at the time taking hits on him to keep him out of the race. So I think all of that is sort of, uh, permeating in his mind as he's entering the race. It's a fascinating dynamic.
Jonathan Allen: (29:29)
The greatest beneficiary of Hillary Clinton's defeat was Joe Biden. Hillary Clinton wins when's the first time she was running for reelection, Joe Biden never gets to run for president again. Now he's president United States, but back to your point about Obama and Biden, just real quick. The other thing that happened here over the course of the last two election cycles is essentially a rejection of Barack Obama. Um, not a full rejection necessarily, but you see Trump win, right? And that's its own rejection of Obama from the sort of broader electorate, but then Joe Biden winning a democratic nomination. This guy who's got this sort of moderate politics, uh, who, um, is very, very careful on issues involving race. He sort of used it as a fulcrum in his career. Um, you know, figuring out where to be on majority side at one point or another, it's basically rejection of the progressive piece of Obama, uh, within the democratic party. And so if you're Obama, you look at where are things eight years after you were president of the United States in order for Democrats to win, they've gotta be politically significantly to your right.
John Darcie: (30:34)
So do you think that portends a continued moderation of the democratic party? Have they adjudicated as a party that they can't win by running these far left candidates? Or how do you think somebody like Bernie Sanders would have fared? Uh, it will say the same scenario played out with the pandemic. How do you think Bernie would have performed in this role?
Jonathan Allen: (30:52)
It's impossible to project, how many runs, uh, you know, I would have given up with a different shortstop, um, you know, playing ball. Uh, but I do think that the Democrats have not made the decision that they are going to be a moderate party or a liberal party to the extent that they have made that decision. Um, it's with their feet and their votes and with everything except for the presidential election, uh, it's been a move to the left and I think it will continue to be a move to the left. I think the big question is whether they're able to figure out the mechanics of voting in the way that Stacey Abrams did in Georgia, where you are able to bring out people election cycle after election cycle, after election cycle and build it and build it and build it. Um, and a lot of that has to do with the basic, like on the ground work of politicking, much more than the sort of philosophical questions.
John Darcie: (31:42)
Yeah. I mean, just to insert my own anecdote in here, I'm a North Carolina native and the North Carolina Senate race, I think was a perfect example of that dichotomy that you mentioned in that Chuck Schumer and the DNC told Cal Cunningham. You'll be our guy. If you agree to just sit in your basement and run attack ads on Donald Trump, and don't try to go out there with a aggressive, progressive type of campaign, there was other better candidates in the state of North Carolina that would have run more Elizabeth Warren type left-wing populous campaigns. And I think there's a lot of hand ringing in local politics about what the best approach was. And obviously the results, uh, have borne out the fact that they think are more energetic candidacy, uh, would have performed better. But Amy, I want to go to you about staffing within the Biden administration. So obviously there's not as much friction as there was within the Trump administration, but you talk in the book about sort of the friction that existed between Obama legacy staffers and more of Biden's own people. How did that play out during the campaign and how has it playing out now that, uh, the administration has governing?
Amie Parnes: (32:46)
It was interesting during the primary. I think they wanted to portray that everything was going well and they were all one team, but you had the primary staffers. They weren't, uh, uh, I think a lot of people outside the campaign about that they weren't quite up to speed. Uh, they weren't running a great campaign. So what happens, obviously there's a silent coup that is, that starts forming to ALS uh, their campaign manager grabbed shul, um, who is really beloved in the campaign. But, um, but even people internally think that he's not doing such a great job. So th Biden, senior advisors are quietly trying to get him out there trying to bring Jenna Mallee, Dylan in who, uh, was Obama's deputy campaign manager. Greg Schultz thinks that she's being brought in as we reported in the book just to like help out a little bit.
Amie Parnes: (33:38)
Um, and he's sort of taken off, he's completely taken. Um, I think he went by surprise when she's brought in and replaces him. Um, and so that's sort of a really interesting dynamic in the book, but then after you have her come in, Jenna valley, Dylan, you have this sort of friction between the primary staffers and the general staffers, and they're essentially the general ones essentially layer over the primary staffers. They're not quite, uh, they're not all talking to each other at the same time. There is a lot of friction going on. A lot of the primary staffers, secretly hate, um, general Mellie Dylan. Um, they may or may not have come to us to complain about it as we were writing the book. Um, and so we were
John Darcie: (34:23)
Salary profiles. Yeah. She had these flowery profiles done of her, right.
Amie Parnes: (34:27)
I mean, they were, they were totally opposed to her kind of saying, oh, I'm a mom and I I'm really good at Peloton. And so you had all this sort of a, um, animosity building towards Jenna valley, Dylan, um, throughout the campaign. And I think it finally comes to a head and sort of at the tail end of the general election, but it was definitely there, um, throughout, and they had political differences as well. John, I don't know if you want to talk about that.
Jonathan Allen: (34:56)
I think what I get out of all that staff in fighting is that a lot of the people that were on the Biden campaign in the first place, uh, were looking to blame Jenna, Molly, Dylan in the event that, uh, Bob lost. Um, and many of them had not, you know, some of them were really good at what they do and some of them are less good at what they do. And, uh, gentlemen, we don't, it's like the best political operative on the democratic side. Um, and you see this infighting going on and it's just sort of, it's sort of a distraction from the campaign. Um, uh, and I think it was, was difficult, but I, uh, John, if you want to pose the, the original question again, I'm happy to pop that.
John Darcie: (35:37)
Yeah. In terms of the friction that exists both during the campaign and now in the administration between there's a ton of former Obama officials that are in the administration, we've talked about that a sort of chasm that exists between Biden and Obama, that people don't like to talk about a lot, but there is, there are a lot of Obama staffers, but then there's also some Biden people. How is that playing out as they're governing as well as,
Jonathan Allen: (36:01)
I mean, right now, you're starting to see from Biden and who knows where like, you know, six weeks in Denver, but you're, I mean, what you've seen is an effort for them to, uh, to move things in a progressive direction for the white house to go in a progressive direction. But also what do, what Biden did, you know, uh, on the campaign trail, which is to use the F the left as a, um, you know, as a foil and to be able to, you know, sort of push himself away from it, even when he's embracing what they're saying, I'll give you a perfect example. Uh, the minimum wage increase that so many, uh, so many Democrats wanted to see how happen happened. Um, you know, Biden says you score that $15 minimum wage, but he knew that when they stuck it in the reconciliation bill, in the Senate, that it wasn't going to go through. Um, and then he can go to, you know, go out to the electorate and say, we need more Democrats. So we can get a $15 minimum wage. And at the same time, there was no business that's angry at him because they're now having to pay a $15 minimum wage and, and, you know, cut back on hours for people or lay people off. Or, and there were no people who got laid off because the $15 minimum wage, when both ways I would call that good politics. So they
John Darcie: (37:13)
Use the parliamentarian as the, in the judge about whether or not they could put the $15 minimum wage in the reconciliation bill. Do you think the Republican party, this is part of a bigger question. Do you think the Republican party would allow the parliamentarian to tell them, uh, you know, you know what you can't build that wall on the Southern border, we're Donald Trump, except that response. And do you think Democrats have enough of a killer instinct? So the John Lewis voting rights act is one example where you have Joe Manchin, Kiersten cinema, basically saying, you know what we think the filibuster is actually a good thing. We're not gonna, you know, in a very partisan way, change the system. But at the same time, you have these structural forces that could cause Republicans in the midterms and beyond to wrest control back and impose, you know, more voter suppression and things like that to prevent Democrats from ever gaining control again. Do you think Democrats have that killer instinct? They need to entrench themselves,
Jonathan Allen: (38:08)
Um, collectively now, I mean, I think one of the things that is appealing, uh, and frustrating the Democrats, isn't there a party doesn't, uh, isn't willing to nuke everything in order to get what it wants. Um, and you know, you see what the reaction to Trump was, his willingness to break institutions, um, you know, to threaten the sanctity of the Republic, you saw what the reaction to that was by the public. So like there, there is an argument to be made to the Democrats by not, you know, uh, always like pulling the trigger for the, you know, the toughest, uh, toughest thing out there have actually found a way back to the power. Um, all of that said, you look at a mansion or a cinema on the, um, on the filibuster or on minimum wage. They are, um, the heat shield for other Democrats in the Senate who don't want to vote for a minimum wage to increase who don't want to break the filibuster.
Jonathan Allen: (39:02)
Um, and those are the ones that are out there publicly. And the reason there are two of them is because if it's one of them, the pressure's too much, if there are two of them, they can handle it. We saw a testimony on minimum wage the other day, eight Democrats in the Senate on that proxy vote, uh, voted, essentially voted against raising the minimum wage to $15. But before that, we had heard there were two against it. And you're gonna assume the same thing about the filibuster that if there are two out there for three out there that it's a deeper reservoir, president Biden himself has given passionate defenses of the filibuster on the Senate floor. Uh, I just don't think it's going anywhere.
John Darcie: (39:37)
Right? Yeah. And you get the sense of in a lot of ways that president Biden didn't necessarily want to raise the minimum wage, especially in that way. Um, and, and mansion and cinema, as you mentioned, are sort of his, his heat shield in that regard. But Amy, I want to go to you about Hillary Clinton. So one of your previous books was called shattered. It was again, sort of a post-mortem on the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton's failed campaign. What was different about the way that Hillary's campaign was run versus the way Biden's campaign was run? Neither one of them was perfect, but what about Biden's situation was unique that was able to get him over the line. Whereas Hillary fell short by a similar margin.
Amie Parnes: (40:16)
The one big thing that John and I found was that Joe Biden had a message. Um, he, and he had the same consistent message throughout the campaign. Um, in the primary, it was, I'm the only one who can beat Donald Trump. Um, and that obviously was true in the end. And then it was sort of like a break, the fever, let's break the fever kind of unity message going into the general. Um, and that sort of carried him through the general. But, you know, when you look at his message, when he started, when you looked at the message on his final day, it's the same. Hillary was kind of all over the place. Um, as we reported the book, she kind of didn't know her starting from her kickoff speech. It was sort of like your standard democratic stump speech, but it wasn't personal to her.
Amie Parnes: (41:04)
Um, and you know, she had her whole, um, I'm with her campaign campaign slogan, and it turned into like five other things. Um, and people never really knew if you asked any general, you know, your neighbor, what she stood for, it would be like a bunch of different things. No one really knew what her core premise was. Whereas if you asked Donald Trump, you know, about Donald Trump, people knew. Um, and so that, that was sort of, um, how we, we saw it and, and I think it really, um, he was true to himself in the end. And I think that that's how he was able to kind of win in the end. The Parker jump was
John Darcie: (41:43)
Anthony wrote about, yeah, go ahead, John,
Jonathan Allen: (41:46)
If I could just jump on that Shakespearian line there for a moment to thine own self, be true, just real quick. I think the other big difference in the messaging was a Hillary Clinton message was about her. Uh I'm with her Joe Biden's message was about something that he could deliver to the public that the public wanted. And it was basically, uh, a more compassionate, uh, and the better character person at the helm of the presidency. I mean, that's boils down to that. The other thing you could get from shattered, if you read it was, uh, we didn't say it straight out, but we said it implicitly, and this is not something that the Biden folks got from us. I think it's because our sources in democratic party were good for the last book too. Um, it was also clear from that book that we thought that, uh, Hillary Clinton should've hired Jenna Mallee, Dillon to be her campaign manager. She was the runner-up, uh, Clinton went another direction. Uh, Jen Dylan, for whatever faults shouldn't have happened. And certainly there were some, uh, is just better at operating a campaign than anybody else in the democratic party.
John Darcie: (42:46)
All right. Well, Jonathan and Amy, thank you so much for joining us here on Saul talks again, the book Anthony, if you want to hold it up, it's lucky how Joe Biden barely won the presidency. Um, and I, I'm not going to editorialize too much, but as you end your book, it was a, it was an important moment for the country, I think as evidenced by the aftermath of the election. But Anthony let's give one more plug. Anthony is a great promoter, as he mentioned.
Anthony Scaramucci: (43:10)
No, I mean, listen, the book is great. I love shattered by the way, I thought that it's interesting content because your take is always based on the reality of the situation, not the form narratives of the Republican or the democratic party. And so I want to recommend this book to everybody. Doesn't matter what political Stripe you are. This is literally a satellite view of what happened. And then as most of these great satellites are, you guys can get right down to the license plates of what happened in this campaign. And so for those reasons, I love reading your work because whether you're a Democrat or Republican, there's something in here for everybody, but you are basically explaining where the country is right now and where it's potentially going. So I'm recommending the book, lucky to everybody out there, how Joe Biden barely won the presidency. Um, and I will say this I'm on page 2 93 case you guys did no, but number one in our hearts, I got my story right though, that was very accurate. Trump was very into the base. He did not care about anything else, which was evidenced by the way, he ran that campaign over the 18 months since he said that to me.
Jonathan Allen: (44:28)
Well, glad to hear that we got it right? Yeah.
Anthony Scaramucci: (44:34)
Guys, I really enjoyed the book. I'm looking forward to your next one and I want people to go out and buy it. Thank you, Anthony. Thank you, John. Thank you, Anthony.
John Darcie: (44:44)
Thank you everybody for tuning into today's salt. Talk with Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnas, who wrote lucky sort of one of the quickest and definitely most thorough postmortems on the 2020 election reminder. If you missed any part of this talk or any of our previous talks, you can access our entire archive on our website@sault.org backslash talks and also on our YouTube channel, which is called salt tube. We're also on social media. Twitter is where we're most active at salt conference. We're also on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. And please spread the word about these salt talks. Um, and on behalf of Anthony and the entire salt team, uh, this is John Darcie signing off for today from salt talks. We hope to see you back here soon.
