Washington Week with The Atlantic

We're all waiting to find out who Kamala Harris picks, as vice president, the solidifying conventional wisdom in our city is that it's Shapiro's to lose the governor of Pennsylvania, um, talk for a minute, um, about his positives and negatives on this ticket.

Start with the positives are he's the governor of Pennsylvania and she has to win Pennsylvania.

There's no way for Kamala Harris to win the presidency without Pennsylvania.

That a plausible way.

Well, no, that's the, yes, uh, and, and he's got a, he's a very popular Democratic governor and uh he is well spoken.

He's good on the stump he's.

Smart, uh, on the other hand, I'm just going to repeat what the former president said today that well he's Jewish and that means that she former president meaning Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bush, OK, just to be clear, just put it right out there just like he always does, and there is some concern that um you know this will be a problem in Michigan with the Muslim groups who are Donald Trump said it, you know, the Palestinians who support Kamala Harris, I mean, he went so far as to, you know, again.

Playing this divisive strategy playing Phillo Semitic but actually sort of baiting anti-Semites what Trump's move was, I would say so, yes, OK, and so that's, I mean, how, how serious is that as a challenge compared to the positives that he brings?

They're very enthusiastic about him so far, and they see his background politically and otherwise as something that could really help and bolster Kamala Harris's appeal to voters right now, obviously the Republicans.

Elizabeth was saying have been looking for ways to kind of find division and and and set set them apart and kind of.

Show voters why this candidacy couldn't work, this ticket couldn't work, but right now there's a lot of enthusiasm.

There are a number of other potential candidates, but it seems that Governor Shapiro so far is in the lead, and he's very popular, Steve, the assiduous reporter that you are, you spend a lot of time talking to voters in Pennsylvania.

I did give us a sense of uh of why Shapiro is popular in his state, um, much more popular than uh Joe Biden.

Well, why he's popular, he's taken what is seen as more moderates.

are more realistic positions that fit with voters in Pennsylvania, people in Pennsylvania are worried about security.

Shapiro had a different view of protests and of law enforcement than perhaps some other Democrats have had in the last couple of years, and people have responded to that.

I think of one voter I spoke with in Pennsylvania in particular, and she was, she said genuinely undecided, registered Republican, uh, is generally against abortion.

Nevertheless thinks Republicans are too extreme on abortion, would like to vote for a Democrat, she said she wasn't sure she could vote for a woman for president, but then went on to say this registered Republican that Shapiro on the ticket would help.

There are Republicans that you can run into in Pennsylvania who like this Democrat, and that is such an extraordinarily rare thing to encounter anybody going across party lines.

Your question why she couldn't vote for a woman for president.

She said things that I've heard from other people, and this is out in America.

I am reporting to you what I do.

I don't doubt it.

You don't shoot the messenger here on PBS.

Her concern is like that that personal nature of being in the room with all these men?

Will they respect her?

Will they treat her as an equal?

My first thought is if you have the power, they're going to be forced to treat you as an equal, but this voter and other people that I've talked with wonder how those interpersonal relations are going to work familiar with the life and work of Nancy Pelosi.

I could have brought it up.

I could have it.

There were people who said that about Barack Obama, you know, what a black leader be respected by other people around the world.

I heard people say that at the time, Steve, you brought up abortion as an issue and um let's talk about JD Vance for a minute.

Um, he's had an interesting mixed week, um, as a candidate, people are finding, finding different things that he said over the years that don't make him popular uh than just be diplomatic talkative on podcast.

He's, he's, you know, he.

Made the mistake of going on podcasts and talking a lot.

Um, the, um, there's a one podcast that just came out 2021.

He was asked should a woman be forced to carry a child to term after she's been the victim of incest or rape, and he answered, Look, my view on this has been very clear, and I think the question betrays a certain presumption that's wrong.

It's not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term.

It's whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child's birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.

So here he's arguing Against seemingly the incest or rape exception.

I've got to imagine that this is not this kind of view is not making people happy at Trump headquarters.

No, of course not.

This is, I don't know, uh, this was not a, uh, a great pick, and I, it sounds like the president, former President Donald Trump thinks that himself.

He knows when he was speaking to the NABJ convention, he went so far as say, well, it doesn't matter who's on the ticket as vice president.

It doesn't matter.

So that is what he now thinks of his uh his vice presidential pick that doesn't matter, it's all about me.

Now he's had a terrible, terrible rollout, cat ladies, we can go on and on.

There's also another issue that JDB.

was still chosen when Biden was in the race, he was chosen in a Biden environment in a Biden environment where also coupled with the fact that Trump believes that his vice presidential candidate really doesn't matter.

Biden himself was uncomfortable with the discussion of abortion, the debate of abortion, his Catholic upbringing made it a very uncomfortable subject for him to tackle.

Now Kamala Harris is leading the ticket and it's a completely different race, particularly on this issue in the last couple of minutes, I want to go to Anne with something that Donald Trump said.

At the NABJ convention.

It was not the thing that got the most attention, um, but it had to do with with January 6th when he was asked whether he would pardon January 6th rioters.

Uh, he said, he said this.

My question is on those rioters who assaulted officers.

Would you pardon what's gonna happen?

Oh, absolutely I would.

You would part of if they're innocent, I would pardon them.

They've been convicted, by the way, the Supreme Court just under Well, they were convicted by a very, a very tough system.

So Ann, they, they were convicted because there's videos of them doing crimes.

Let's just park that aside.

I'm curious interpreting what he said through the prism of what you understand about the autocratic mentality.

What do you, what are you getting from that appearance he's getting people used to the idea that courts are politicized and can be manipulated, and that's OK, that's normal that that rule of law is, is malleable and he's getting people used to the The idea that there could be something different, rule by law, which is what happens in Russia and China and North Korea, which means that the leader decides what the law is, you know, and so I proclaim them innocent and so they are and, and, and he is changing the way people talk and last question on this.

Do the Democrats benefit from talking about his lack of fealty to democratic norms, or is that not a main issue in the next 3 months?

I think they do as long as they're also talking about the future and what will change and what will happen, you know, it's not they can't run a campaign that's just about the past, right?

And what would change in terms of January 6th and you do think the American people will accept the pardoning?

Of these January 6th rioters.

Some people will, and some people will find it profoundly offensive and that it will be yet it would be an unbelievably divisive issue, of course.

Well, Unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now, to cheerful note, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was trying to go up note, but here we are