Inside The 2024 Democratic National Convention
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$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. This week's Live in the Bream is coming to you from the United Center in Chicago as the DNC is about to kick off. I am joined by the one and only Juan Williams and Karl Rove. Is that the two and only? Maybe for you too?

I don't know. There's an evil doppelganger out there somewhere. Listen, we love hearing you guys together. You have such good insights on what's going on in both of your parties and this presidential campaign. So let's start one with what we expect to hear at the DNC this week. Are we going to get more detail, more minutia about the Harris-Waltz ticket, what their plans are, or is this going to be a pep rally?

It's a pep rally, and that's the ideal. Now, obviously, you have X factors that could change things on the run, especially there's concern about the protest outside. But I think internally what they want to accomplish is to define Kamala Harris in a way that the American people can embrace, maybe even more than embrace it.

that the enthusiasm that we've seen the past three weeks since she's come into this race would be accelerated. I mean, that it would take off because people say, you know, I really didn't know her. I knew she was vice president. There was a lot of criticism of her time as vice president. But now, wait a minute, I like this person. And I think that's the goal of this convention. Well, and Carl, when you have an untested, un-tested,

you know, pressed candidate, somebody who's not sat down with the press yet. You and I were talking about during one of the commercials of Fox News Sunday, is there time to redefine her for Republicans? Because right now the momentum in the polls is not good for them. I mean, New York Times has new polling out in critical states like Arizona and North Carolina, where they say she's overtaken President Trump. We've got the Washington Post ABC News poll out today saying that nationally she's got, you know, a couple of points up on President Trump. After this convention, she'll have another bump.

What do Republicans need to do post DNC? Well, they need to accept the fact that she's going to get some good movement out of this convention. It's outside of the control of Republicans to affect that. It's inside the hands of Democrats to decide whether or not they have a good convention.

But assuming she has a good convention, which I think is likely, she's going to come out of here with a big head of steam and probably carry it through Labor Day. I mean, we have one week after this convention ends before Labor Day. There'll be a whole raft of polls after Labor Day and she'll be ahead. And what Republicans have to do is have a very disciplined focus on the three big issues in this campaign, inflation, the economy and immigration. And, you know, to me, it's amazing. The first person who did a good job attacking her.

was Dave McCormick, the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania who went after his Democrat opponent for having supported the vote that tied up a couple of big issues in Congress that she then decided. And we have yet to see, there's a new ad out by the Trump campaign which starts to get there, but we have yet to see President Trump say she was the person

who cast the tie-breaking vote that put a nearly $2 trillion spending program that kicked off inflation, the American Rescue Plan. She was the one, the tie-breaking vote that passed the big spending budget of FY21. She was the tie-breaking vote that put in place the gigantic spending bill of the FY22 budget. She's the person responsible for bringing about inflation by having way too much government spending, too much money chasing too few goods. But they have yet to do that.

And one, listen, a lot of Democrats think they love that, that President Trump is so distracted by personal beefs and issues and calling her stupid and that kind of thing. Are you worried, though, if the policy focus starts to happen, whether it's through the ads and the things that Carl frames or tougher media interviews that, you know, some of the balance is going to go away?

Well, right now, the question is, wow, what an amazing first few weeks. I mean, I think we're all still a little bit stunned by that. And if Carl is right and this is a good convention, you know, he's right. She's likely to get a little bit of a bump. I don't know how much, but a little bump right now, given the direction, the momentum of the polls would be significant.

And, you know, when you think about then the potential for stumble, it seems to me massive because given all the celebration, the hoopla, irrational exuberance, as some say, then they just think, well, what happens if she stumbles and falls on her face? What if she does something stupid? What if she proves to be incomprehensible when she's off the teleprompter? You know, what happens then?

I don't know. We have to see. I mean, we're in uncharted territory there. Now, I will say that when I look on Carl's side and I'm interested to hear what he thinks about this over the last week, the behavior of the Trump campaign has been one that says we don't know exactly what to do.

And it looks to me like it's not only the candidate, but it's inside the campaign because they're bringing in Corey Lewandowski, bringing him back from the past. Right. And I have seen reporting they had an all hands on deck meeting to try to figure out where to go. And you have people, you know, like Kellyanne Conway and others saying pretty much what Carl's saying. Let's get to the issues and stop with the personal attacks. But Trump this week.

doubled down and said, I have a right to issue personal attacks on Kamala Harris. Because he feels attacked. I guess. I don't know. I mean, to me, he's the one talking about her looks, about her race. That seems pretty personal. He does say she's beautiful, though.

Well, he said the Time magazine made her look like Elizabeth Taylor. I don't get the two there, although they're both are beautiful women. I don't see the similarities. But, Carl, what about this idea that Corey Lewandowski is coming back? This is the guy who wrote the book, Let Trump Be Trump. I mean, is he going to cater to what the president thinks is working for him? What about Kellyanne Conway?

way. I mean, others, if they come aboard, he's done shakeups in the past in the summers leading into his fall elections. First, let me say, I'm not going to hold Juan responsible for the troubles of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris if he won't hold me responsible for. Oh, no. You know what Donald Trump thinks of me. He's a total loser. He's not your number one fan. Yeah. So but but look, I think there's a good point that you raise.

which is how disciplined is this campaign going to be in the last 80 some odd days of the race? And Lewandowski is a, you know, let Trump be Trump. He had an interview here.

You tell me what you think of this. Here's what he said. He was asked about the current leadership of the campaign. He said, I have never told anyone I will be conducting a forensic audit of the campaign, nor have I alluded to or have any understanding of how much money Chris LaCivita may or may not have billed this campaign, end quote.

Now, what do you think? That just rolls off the tongue. I'm sure that was not scripted or planned ahead of time. Yeah, well, this was in a conversation with a reporter. So what do you think of that, Juan? What was the message of that quote? I mean, that's infighting. By the way, I didn't think that you were going to be held responsible. I hope you didn't understand me. I just thought you know campaigns. You're a very successful man at campaigning, and you see the kind of inner turmoil. So I'm thinking, what's Carl's view of this? Yeah, look, look.

presidential campaigns are particularly here in the final days are a pressure cooker. Like it's hard to understand if you haven't been through it. And that's with a team like we had in 2000 and 2004. There were collegial. Yes, we had our disagreements. Yes, there were egos. But everybody pulled in unison.

And to me, he's something like this. I mean, there was if the question posed by the reporter is, do you think Chris LaCivita is making too much money off of the campaign? There are a lot of more artful ways to avoid a controversy than to say I have nor have I alluded to or have any understanding of how much money Chris LaCivita may or may not have built this campaign. You do not need this kind of internal stress.

in the last 80 some odd days of a campaign, you need people agreeing upon a plan and executing. You need to have the best thinking brought forward in a way that people can understand what somebody else is saying and with an open mind, accept whether that's right or wrong, not with what

this suggests which is i got a lot of scores to settle oh boy well and listen you know the three of us are deeply inside this stuff because we've lived it we cover it all kinds of things i thought i saw some really interesting man on the street interviews this week where people really didn't know a lot of the stuff that we're talking about like it just was not on their radar at all so in that respect how much will ads whether digital online going where people are on tv how much can ads reshape

this race for either side? Well, I think ads are always powerful because first of all, look at how much money is being spent. And the Harris campaign just recently announced 300 million in ads. 370 million. It's unbelievable. Between now and election day. But the other part of that is, of course, ground game. And the Harris campaign has a bit of an edge there too. But ads do make a difference. The key for the Harris campaign, I think,

You know, given what we were discussing on Fox News Sunday, Shannon, is to stay away a little bit from the invitation that Carl's side would have her do, which is get into the minutia of policy. I think she wants to say new generation moving forward. Let's put the past of Trump aside.

and Biden and all that behind you, I'm a new look for American politics. Well, and Carl, how can she not do that for 12 weeks if there's nobody pressing? Yeah, well, look, I have a slightly different view on advertising. Advertising works only when it reinforces what we already have in our minds.

There's a great book, The Responsive Chord, by a Democratic ad maker who's now since died named Tony Schwartz, where he says that ads are powerful when they interact with what we already have in our brains and elicit the response. So, for example, Donald Trump is a strong is seen as a strong leader.

Ads that reinforce that. Ads that P has seen as having an advantage on inflation. Ads that have that. The sort of the groundbreaking role that Kamala Harris would be, that would be helpful and reinforce that. What the Republicans ought to be worried about, in my opinion, again, it's not my side. I'm analyzing this thing. Right.

Is what happens if they have start pulling out people who say I was a Capitol Hill police officer on January 6th with footage of them being bashed by rioters and they say and Donald Trump's going to pardon the man who assailed me.

I mean, that is going to be a powerful ad. Similarly, ads by Trump said the Trump campaign said she was she cast the tiebreaking vote for the one point nine trillion dollar American Rescue Plan bill that kicked off inflation. Even Democrats like Larry Summers said, you pass this bill, you're going to regret it because it kick off inflation. And she cast the tiebreaking vote just like she did on the on the FY 22 budget and FY 23 budget.

too much government spending and she's responsible because that's what you know people are looking for an explanation and those kind of things would would explain uh things that harris did that people don't like and things that trump is advocating that people don't like we'll have more live in the bream in a moment

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So we've got two debates agreed to, one presidential, one vice presidential. September 10th will be upon us pretty quickly, right after Labor Day, Carl, as you were talking about. So far, that's the only one that everybody's agreed to. How critical is that? I mean, it was the end of Joe Biden's campaign. Yes. But their expectations are that the vice president will way outperform what we saw from President Biden that night. How important are the debates?

Well, there are two things that two two ways to judge that. I think she's going to be very effective as a former prosecutor. She was very good in the debates with Biden. On the other hand, the question is going to be, how does she come across to the American people? It's not just simply good enough to come across as I was the effective person who, you know, sort of cut up the cut to cut Donald Trump, Donald Trump up one side, down the other. We want to know who those people are.

And so in 1960, we got a very clear sense of the bright young John F. Kennedy, you know, the World War II veteran. Richard Nixon was his same age and was also a veteran. But he came across as tired and out of sorts and lost the debate. If you at least if you watched it on radio, he won it.

But there's going to be two ways that we're going to evaluate both of these people on the substance of the evening and the persona. And the second may be the most important, because one of the things that's going to come down, you mentioned the people not paying attention. I had an interesting conversation with the director of the Fox News poll, Darren Shaw. And his point was of the people who are up for grabs in this election.

About a third of them, roughly, are people who are sort of true independents, weakly linked to either party. A third of them are disaffected Republicans, and a third of them are low information voters.

I happen to mention this to a Democrat consultant, and he said, yes, we've been studying those people, and they pay attention to politics roughly four minutes a week. So they're not going to make it through this podcast, Carl. Well, yes, they will, because we have you as the host. Yeah, but the point is, is that.

You know, we don't know exactly how all this information is going to play out, but those people aren't taking much in and what they're taking in, they're taking in about, you know, how do I do I like Juan Williams? Do I like Karl Rove? You know, how does it that Rove has a sort of irritating voice, you know, that kind of thing. I mean, so we don't know how they're going to react. And that's going to make this a really interesting thing. One last point. There's a really interesting thing in real clear politics called in this day and this day in history.

On this day in history, in 2020, Joe Biden was leading by 7.7 percent in the real clear politics average. And in 2016, Hillary Clinton was leading by six. And in 2016, it comes down to 70 some odd thousand votes in three states. And in 2020, it comes down to 40, just over 40,000 votes in three states. This race is going to be close in all great likelihood.

You know, I just wanted to pick up on the debate thing. You know, I think it kind of fuses with Carl's analysis of the ad. The American people have something in their mind about these two candidates, Shannon. And what they have in their mind about Donald Trump is I know Donald Trump. Donald Trump has been this dominant political figure, you know, for the last three races. And I know him and he says crazy stuff. But on the other hand, he's a commanding leader. He's a man. He was always wants to go hard.

And then they think to themselves, what about Harris? Well, Harris, I don't know much about, but she's pushing forward this idea of a new generation. It's almost like going back to John F. Kennedy, right? New Frontier, Camelot, that kind of stuff. She has all this. Her base, picking up again on what Carl was analyzing about, you know, with Darren Shaw, about those undecided voters, the people who are still left very small in number. But the difference, I would argue, is that

Harris has managed to energize the Democratic base in a way that Biden could not. And the question is whether or not that energized base is able to be

translated into not only organizing and fundraising, but votes. And if you get those young people and, you know, especially young people, minority people to say, you know what, I'm not indifferent. I am actually excited about this campaign. I think it does make a difference. And I think that's why we've seen her polls jump up. I think a lot of that groundwork was in place under Biden, but he didn't, he didn't like the fuse. Well, do you think,

absent that debate in June, historically early, that this would be a totally different race. I mean, if President Biden was still getting the same treatment he was, which was like not a lot of soul searching over his ability to move things forward, if he was doing sort of the same kind of interviews and speeches and those kinds of things and had gotten to the convention,

I mean, it would have been too late for the DNC to make any changes at that point. I mean, it would be look, we would be at a convention that was the anti-Trump convention. It would be about reminding people of Trump's first term and all the controversies in Charlottesville and the soul of the nation. It would be a repeat. I think it would be a rerun. It would be like we're going back to a.

You know, was it Shirley? What is that show? I forget. What? Laverne and Shirley? Laverne and Shirley. I'll be going back to Laverne. People say, we've seen this show before. Let's go forward. It would be an utter unmitigated disaster if we were here. I mean, Biden was, look, Biden made the big critical strategic mistake saying, let's have an early debate. Right.

But but that was the strategic mistake that advantaged Trump, because if there had been a late debate or no debate at all, you know, the air was bleeding out of the tires for Joe Biden's vehicles. Hmm. Well, here we go this week. And you talked about this. Had it been a Biden Trump rematch, it would have been a lot of those themes. But in what we're seeing from the DNC so far, it is very much.

There's a lot of mention of Donald Trump in their themes, and it's that we are for the people. Donald Trump is for himself. She's a former prosecutor. He's a convicted felon. Where do those messages go this week? Because they still sound pretty focused on Donald Trump.

Well, I think that's for the debate. And I think you'll see, you know, you'll see the prosecutor angle prominent in how Harris treats him. I mean, I think she's she's going to be strong and not allow him to dominate. I'm interested to see how he responds, remembering how he handled Biden in the first debate in 20. And it did not work to just interrupt. And it didn't come across well for him.

But I think that for her, it's absolutely imperative to define herself. I keep coming back to that as my basic thing, not only for that debate, but first here at the Chicago convention. And Carl, is there been a missed opportunity for Republicans to tackle that defining her, defining Tim Walz in these three, four weeks they've had sort of as a free ride? Yeah, I think so. First of all, they made a mistake into spending more time on Tim Walz than they did on Kamala Harris. I mean, she's

She's ahead of the ticket and being precise and focused and short and disciplined is, is a lot better than what, what they've done. And look, she's,

She is poll tested. I mean, take a look at the economic address that she gave in North Carolina on Friday. I mean, I'm sure that whacking big corporations is a poll tested winner, but I'm not certain it moves voters. I think it reinforces the predilection of many Democrats to support her, but it doesn't move voters.

to move from undecided to her. And when you lose the Washington Post, when the Washington Post castigates you editorially as a Democrat and says your economic address was populist gimmickry, then you're in trouble. But look, she's gonna have a good convention. They know how to do this. This is entertainment. We're gonna learn about her in ways that are gonna be exciting and interesting and things we didn't know before. And it's gonna energize the Democrats. Juan made a very important point.

Democrat enthusiasm today is bigger than Republican enthusiasm, which would never be the case if Joe Biden were still the nominee of the Democratic Party. What should we eat while we're in Chicago? Before we go, the really important questions. Beef. Eat beef. You had a great steak the other day. I had a great steak. Ron, have you had a chance to have a good meal here yet? Not yet, but

I am, you know, a big fan of Chicago pizza. Me too. But you know what? I worry that at my age, it's going to blow me up. I'm just going to be a fat man leaving Chicago. Okay, listen. Speaking of food in Chicago. Yes. About 30 some odd years ago, I'm sitting in Carson's restaurant with my wife and she says,

I don't feel well. Uh-oh. I'm feeling ill. I think I'm pregnant. Oh, well, that's a good feeling, though. And she was right. And we debated whether we should name Andrew Carson as a result of being at Carson's ribs. But no, we ended up naming him Andrew. I love that memory. All right, let's continue this discussion over a deep dish pizza, which we will find, and we're just going to embrace it. Love it. Okay. Karl Rove, Juan Williams, thank you both very much for joining us on Live in the Bream from the DNC.

Listen ad-free with the Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech Podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to FoxNewsPodcasts.com.