Washington Week with The Atlantic

FRANKLIN FOER: Well, what's the psyche, what's the psychological makeup of House Democrats who are having this external - - internal freak out but not projecting it really externally?

How do they make their way through the next couple months?

ALI VITALI: Every day this week, I've gotten a text message that says the dam's going to break today.

And I think that sort of tells the story.

Hashtag vibes, I'm big on the vibes, but the Hill has had a very bad vibe.

I wonder, and I've heard competing views on this, now that they are home for recess for a week, is it better that they are all individually on their own and can be with their families?

Does that make them worse or better, more likely to come out?

Or is it better that they're not all here and riling each other up?

I don't know.

ASHLEY PARKER: And when you talk about performance, it's not just Biden's performance to reassure, it's that the whole Biden theory of the case, which they've been quite clear about is that you need a candidate who can make the case against Donald Trump, the way that Joe Biden wins is not when it's a referendum on him when it is, as he says, a choice between me and not the almighty but the alternative.

And Joe Biden, even when he is giving, you know, perfectly fine nuanced answers on foreign policy, as he did in that press conference, so far on the debate stage, Trump lied repeatedly in pretty obvious and clear ways, and Joe Biden was not nimble enough to point that out during that bad debate.

And even during that press conference, there were plenty of opportunities where a more nimble, more focused candidate would have taken those questions, answered them and said, you're asking about my mental acuity, let me point out these seven things I think are troubling with Donald Trump.

And Joe Biden cannot or has not shown in any way he is capable of doing what you need to do to win.

FRANKLIN FOER: Let's step back and look at the map and look at the actual politics of this.

Is there a pathway that Joe Biden has now for victory?

What does it look like?

And when the Trump people talk about a landslide that's impending, like is that a justifiable sense of confidence that they bring to the table?

ASHLEY PARKER: There is a path.

You can read all about it in The Washington Post tomorrow morning.

But it is an incredibly narrow path.

It was already narrow before the debate and there is basically, Joe Biden's team put out a memo that says, our strongest path is through the, quote/unquote, blue wall, that's Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

But a lot of Democrats privately and even publicly told me they feel that in this moment that is just about the only path.

And then conversely I talked to some Trump people who -- I talked to Trump's pollster who was gloating about he stopped counting after he got to 25 different paths to the White House for Donald Trump.

Now, are there actually 25 paths?

Probably not or probably not very likely or plausible ones, but just the fact that that operation has the confidence to say something like that on the record gives you a sense of where this race stands.

FRANKLIN FOER: Mark, let's just pause and reflect upon this moment.

I mean, do you think that there's the possibility of a Trump landslide?

And kind of what does that say about the Democratic Party, maybe America, that we're on the brink of this?

MARK LEIBOVICH: Yes.

My theory of the case is that the dam will break and someone will take away the car keys.

I just wanted to get that out of the way.

FRANKLIN FOER: In the next crucial week?

MARK LEIBOVICH: Yes.

No, I mean, a landslide is possible.

Look, it doesn't matter if it's a landslide or not.

If Donald Trump wins, I mean, that is the catastrophic scenario that Democrats have been dreading for a long, long time.

And, by the way, the anti-Trump coalition in this country is far bigger than the pro-Biden coalition in this country.

And I think it's notable that whenever someone talks about even the possibility of an alternative, even if it's Kamala Harris, who has, as pointed out, has not polled terribly well over the last few years, it kind of -- there's like kind of a fresh air around it.

There's an energy around any alternative to the kind of Biden narrative that I think is beyond problematic but also exhausting for so many people.

FRANKLIN FOER: Yes.

Ali, with Kamala Harris, how much is she affecting the calculus among Congressional Democrats?

If the dam hasn't broken, is it because that they don't have that much confidence in the alternative?

ALI VITALI: I do think it's striking that every person that we've seen come out so far, and we're only talking about 20, 21 people at this point, but no one says, or at least not that I can recall, and Kamala Harris should be the nominee.

We've had some people say that they would prefer that.

Certainly, Jim Clyburn is one of those people.

But no one is really laying out what that next path needs to look like.

There's no coalescing around one idea.

I will say, for the entire time that I have tracked Kamala Harris in the White House, and I've done so closely, solely because she is historic and it's important, the blueprint that she sets, there is more comfortability around her now that I have heard from elected Democrats on the Hill and donors than ever before.

And I think the thing to remember, too, is as we watch money dry up, she was always a prolific fundraiser.

ASHLEY PARKER: And she's a former prosecutor running against a convicted felon, and there's a sense that she could take that case compellingly.