Speaker 1: This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, The Gary and Shannon Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. We are broadcasting live from the
Speaker 1: DNC in Chicago. Special guest here on stage with us now.
Speaker 2: Former Chicago Mayor Lori lfefoot, Now, one of the political
Speaker 2: analysts that we see on TV many times.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us today. It's my pleasure. So you are.
Speaker 1: Instrumental in bringing this convention to Chicago.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know.
Speaker 4: Look, I feel a tremendous sense of pride that the
Speaker 4: convention that we work really really hard to win the
Speaker 4: bid and then worked hard to get the foundation up
Speaker 4: and running is actually now here and that people are
Speaker 4: experiencing it. People are happy. I'm talking to people from
Speaker 4: all across the country, folks that have been in Chicago
Speaker 4: before but maybe not for a while, or have never come.
Speaker 4: And I'm pleased to say that the reviews have been
Speaker 4: extraordinarily positive. What's happening on the convention floor so far
Speaker 4: has been incredibly inspiring, and I think the week is
Speaker 4: only going to build and build and build to Vice
Speaker 4: President Harris formally accepts thee the nomination in front of
Speaker 4: the millions that are going to be watching.
Speaker 2: That's going to be quite a show, because last night
Speaker 2: was quite a show.
Speaker 3: It's quite a show. If it continues to.
Speaker 2: Build, like you say, it's going to be quite a
Speaker 2: big deal.
Speaker 4: I need them to be a little more conscious of time.
Speaker 4: Though for somebody in my dotage, staying up till midnight
Speaker 4: I was a little challenging, but it was just an
Speaker 4: incredibly inspiring night.
Speaker 1: You've talked about the importance of toning down the rhetoric
Speaker 1: we've gotten out of control in this country, slinging mud.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot of that last night, which was
Speaker 1: refreshing to see.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I really think that Vice President Harris has
Speaker 4: really set the tone. You know, it would be easy
Speaker 4: for her, the former prosecutor. I've seen her make her
Speaker 4: arguments to give as good as she's getting from the
Speaker 4: Donald Trump and the Republican side, but she has I think,
Speaker 4: made a conscious decision to take a little higher road.
Speaker 3: She's not ignoring some.
Speaker 4: Of the craziness that comes out of there, but she's
Speaker 4: dismissing it and then projecting her positivity, her vision, and
Speaker 4: I think the strategy so far has been working earliantly.
Speaker 1: Just to follow up on that. We're going to hear
Speaker 1: from Michelle Obama today, and I think it's been talked
Speaker 1: about her quote, you know when they go low, we
Speaker 1: go high, and we kind of moved away from that
Speaker 1: a little bit for some time, and I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: that is another theme that we hear today.
Speaker 4: Well, I would be very surprised. So she didn't herself
Speaker 4: repeat that tonight. I think she and her husband, the
Speaker 4: former President, Barack Obama, are going to emphasize the thing
Speaker 4: that I think they feel very strongly, which is you've
Speaker 4: got to gotta get people hope, You've got to get
Speaker 4: people a sense of the possibility. I would expect both
Speaker 4: of them to talk about that tonight. But yeah, Michelle Obama,
Speaker 4: former first Lady, beloved of course in her hometown. It's
Speaker 4: going to be a lot of happy, cheering people when
Speaker 4: she takes the stage tonight. But this has got to
Speaker 4: be an election about the future, not the past. And
Speaker 4: the slogan I think that the Vice President adopted when
Speaker 4: she introduced Tim More, her running mate, that we're not
Speaker 4: going to go back, We're not looking backwards.
Speaker 3: That is her backhanded I.
Speaker 4: Think punch at Trump, But I think it's important because
Speaker 4: that's what people want to see.
Speaker 2: We're talking with Lorie Lightfoot, former mayor of the Great
Speaker 2: City of Chicago, and I've never spent a whole lot
Speaker 2: of time here, so these last two days have been
Speaker 2: really great walking around downtown. The criticism that has been
Speaker 2: leveled against Vice President Harris so far has been she's
Speaker 2: not sat down for that long form interview. She's not
Speaker 2: answered questions specifically about policy.
Speaker 3: If you are advising her.
Speaker 2: Would you put your foot on the gas for that,
Speaker 2: would you say, hey, we need to get at the
Speaker 2: very least, we need to stop the criticism about it.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I think it's important. I thinkly think the
Speaker 4: strategy that she's engaged in is exactly the right one
Speaker 4: for her at this moment. She has to reintroduce herself
Speaker 4: to the public, and you always want to define yourself,
Speaker 4: you always want to.
Speaker 3: Create your own narrative.
Speaker 4: So I think the strategy is, rather than sitting down
Speaker 4: for a long form interview that's going to be parse
Speaker 4: twenty ways from Sunday, people would be peeling back the
Speaker 4: layers of it. She's saying, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 4: to go out. I'm going to talk to directly to
Speaker 4: the American public. I'm going to tell them who I am,
Speaker 4: what I stand for, and what I want to do
Speaker 4: for the future.
Speaker 1: Last question, I know you've had some heated exchanges with
Speaker 1: Trump in the past.
Speaker 4: Yes, Look, you know I've spent a lot of time,
Speaker 4: frankly this last couple of weeks thinking a lot about
Speaker 4: twenty twenty, which was a very very difficult time for
Speaker 4: me personally. I think it was a different time for
Speaker 4: our city. The President didn't help, ironically when he would
Speaker 4: call me, not that often, but we call me and
Speaker 4: talk one on one. He was the nicest guy in
Speaker 4: the world, really and very complimentary. But if you match
Speaker 4: that up with the rhetoric SS was out there and
Speaker 4: how he was, you know, bad, mounting me by name
Speaker 4: baths and mounting my city, it's like.
Speaker 1: This is schizophrenic and out of both sides of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's him, Yeah, right, that's him.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for I know you got
Speaker 1: to go, Laurie Lightfoot, Thank pleasure.
Speaker 3: All right, So there is more today that's going on.
Speaker 2: Yesterday, as we were leaving, we saw, of course, the
Speaker 2: protesters that had started up near Union Park, which is
Speaker 2: only four or five blocks away from us, and as
Speaker 2: we were making our way towards our ride basically get
Speaker 2: back to the hotel, we saw the skirmish lines and
Speaker 2: we saw some of the protesters while it was still
Speaker 2: contained in the park. Then the protesters made their way
Speaker 2: down here closer to United Center and were able to
Speaker 2: break down a couple of those security barriers that have
Speaker 2: been erected around the perimeter here. What's amazing to me
Speaker 2: is or not amazing, what I think you have to
Speaker 2: remember when you see the images of those people knocking
Speaker 2: those barriers.
Speaker 3: Down, is they didn't go in because they knew.
Speaker 2: That on the other side of that was about seven
Speaker 2: thousand of Chicago's finest of Illinois State's finest, of the
Speaker 2: secret services, finest of the Homeland Security investigators at finest.
Speaker 3: They were all waiting for them.
Speaker 1: We just totally hogged LORI light Foot. By the way,
Speaker 1: there's like all these other people waiting to interview her,
Speaker 1: which at the small window, and I knew it, but
Speaker 1: I didn't care, because you know what this show first.
Speaker 1: I am this show first. You are not taking note
Speaker 1: for an air, not going to help any other shows.
Speaker 1: This is this show first. And you know you gotta
Speaker 1: be cutthroats sometimes.
Speaker 2: The protesters yesterday were for the most part smaller than expected.
Speaker 2: At least the numbers were smaller than expected. They didn't
Speaker 2: do as much damage as was expected. This morning, Governor
Speaker 2: Tim Walls, of course, the vice presidential candidate, was interrupted
Speaker 2: by some pro Palestinian protesters when he was addressing the
Speaker 2: Women's Caucus today. The demonstrators from Code Pink chanted things
Speaker 2: like stop killing women in Gaza. They had a banner
Speaker 2: that said Kamala, no weapons to Israel and arms embargo.
Speaker 3: Now, Tim Walls.
Speaker 2: Didn't say a word to the protesters, didn't acknowledge them
Speaker 2: as matter of fact, they were simply drowned out by
Speaker 2: chance from the crowd of USA USA. They were at
Speaker 2: McCormick Place this morning and they were eventually let out
Speaker 2: by security.
Speaker 1: All right, Coming up next, we will be talking with
Speaker 1: Alex Thompson from Axios about Kamala Harrison, this controlled rollout
Speaker 1: that we've seen, how they've been able to manage this.
Speaker 2: We are live today at United Center in Chicago for
Speaker 2: Day two of the Democratic National Convention.
Speaker 3: Carl Road, Carl Rode just walked on. It is the
Speaker 3: weirdest thing.
Speaker 2: They were explaining that when we left yesterday, you know,
Speaker 2: we leave here three o'clock Chicago time, and we.
Speaker 3: Like I said, we went and got the car, and
Speaker 3: the protests were going on just down the street.
Speaker 2: That this area right here in front of the Michael
Speaker 2: Jordan's statue is where all of the VIPs came in.
Speaker 1: Not the v.
Speaker 2: VIPs, not the president, vice president, but they're families, some
Speaker 2: of those people. They were all walking right in front
Speaker 2: of us. So it's just been you know, every once
Speaker 2: in a while, you'll see somebody that you regularly see
Speaker 2: on TV and you think, can Bernie Sanders hair really
Speaker 2: be that crazy?
Speaker 3: And the answer is one thousand percent yes.
Speaker 1: And is Lori lightfoot really that small?
Speaker 2: Yes, she's shorter than you are, yes, which that takes something.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm just saying.
Speaker 1: We want talked about Kamala Harris's controlled strategy, the fact
Speaker 1: that she has not sat down for an interview, she
Speaker 1: has not taken questions from the press at length, and
Speaker 1: how they're able to get away with that, how they're
Speaker 1: able to just put on this beautifully choreographed movie and
Speaker 1: not get an interview down this far along.
Speaker 2: Alex Thompson from Axios wrote an article specifically about this
Speaker 2: and this maybe unusual way that they're rolling out this campaign.
Speaker 3: Alex, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 5: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is an interesting aspect because this woman is
Speaker 2: running for president, but she has not in the last
Speaker 2: several weeks at least since getting the nomination officially sat
Speaker 2: down with anyone for any sort of long form interne
Speaker 2: and that appears to be the plan, right, that's what
Speaker 2: they want to do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it really is extraordinary that you're going
Speaker 5: to have a Democratic nominee who has not gotten any votes,
Speaker 5: has not sad for an interview, has not done a
Speaker 5: press conference, has not laid out in detail her policy
Speaker 5: vision and priorities for her first hundred days and beyond.
Speaker 5: But that is the place we are at, just given
Speaker 5: the extraordinary circumstances of Joe Biden dropping out and the
Speaker 5: fact that.
Speaker 3: She has long been even.
Speaker 5: Before this, a very cautious politician, and some of her
Speaker 5: worst moments as vice president have been in unscripted moments,
Speaker 5: unscripted interviews. She has not always been been deft in
Speaker 5: those moments, and I think they were clearly trying to
Speaker 5: avoid anything that could stop sort of the momentum and
Speaker 5: some of the positive media coverage that was coming with her,
Speaker 5: and so they didn't see a need to do an.
Speaker 1: Interview Alex who is the choreographer of this risk adverse strategy,
Speaker 1: who's pulling the strings here? And is there a boot
Speaker 1: camp for her behind the scenes where she's learning to
Speaker 1: be better off the cuff?
Speaker 6: Great question.
Speaker 5: So the choreographer here is Kamala Harris herself. I can
Speaker 5: tell you, having talked to a lot of her former aids,
Speaker 5: that this is a candidate driven in some ways. You know,
Speaker 5: it comes from a place of insecurity and frustration when
Speaker 5: she when anything goes wrong, and so aids sort of
Speaker 5: start learning that they don't really push to put her
Speaker 5: an unscripted moments unless they feel like they really need to.
Speaker 5: But you know this is coming from the top herself.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 5: In terms of behind the scenes boot camp, I can
Speaker 5: tell you that Stephanie Cutter, a former Obama AID who
Speaker 5: is also helping produce this convention, has been working behind
Speaker 5: the scenes with Kamala Harris and media training and other things.
Speaker 5: For the last several months. She has been visiting the
Speaker 5: White House and visiting the Vice President to work on
Speaker 5: these things to try to improve, you know, her dexterity
Speaker 5: in those unscripted moments. But the thing is, we don't
Speaker 5: know because the last interview we saw was right after
Speaker 5: the disastrous debate in late June, when she talked to
Speaker 5: See in MSNBC, and since then we haven't we haven't
Speaker 5: really seen her.
Speaker 2: It's interesting I was reading your piece in Axios today
Speaker 2: and you referred to a plan to ask Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: to be the headliner for the Gridiron Dinner, which is
Speaker 2: generally a less serious event, but that she resisted. Is
Speaker 2: it because she doesn't think that's fun. She doesn't think
Speaker 2: that would be beneficial. I mean, why would she not
Speaker 2: do that put herself, especially as vice president, kind of
Speaker 2: raise you know, raise her own level of appearance.
Speaker 5: Perhaps, you know, I think it goes to this very
Speaker 5: you know, she does not this this caution that she has,
Speaker 5: she does she likes now her defenders would call it
Speaker 5: being very steady and very disciplined. But it was not
Speaker 5: very fun jobs necessarily be in that office, you know,
Speaker 5: doing some comms work, because it was very difficult to
Speaker 5: convince her it was worth it and that it was
Speaker 5: it was worth to squeeze and you know, I think
Speaker 5: that first year as Vice President in particular was really tough.
Speaker 5: This invite to the grid Iron Dinner came in early
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two, and the thing, the thing that was
Speaker 5: like surprising about it is that the White House wanted
Speaker 5: her to do it. It wasn't necessarily the grid Iron
Speaker 5: was inviting her. The White House wanted her to do it,
Speaker 5: and she and she said no. And basically the staff
Speaker 5: did not want to, you know, push her to do it,
Speaker 5: given that they you know, given that they knew that
Speaker 5: it could if things went wrong that or if things
Speaker 5: went badly things didn't go off with that hitch, that
Speaker 5: she would be frustrated by it. So it creates this
Speaker 5: sort of self fulfilling cycle of being choreographed and scripted
Speaker 5: because staff don't want anything to go wrong, so they
Speaker 5: only do things that are very very tightly controlled.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, when you think about presidents, and that's
Speaker 1: generally the climate that they operate in is a very
Speaker 1: controlled environment in terms of picking and choosing when they speak,
Speaker 1: when they address the nation and all of that. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you can get away with it
Speaker 1: at least right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think it's very possible that she
Speaker 5: goes through election day with very few interviews and very
Speaker 5: few unscripted moments. I mean, Joe Biden has done fewer
Speaker 5: interviews with the press than basically any president in recent memory,
Speaker 5: and so I do think, you know, the thing that's
Speaker 5: interesting is that even though the presidency is very highly
Speaker 5: you know, stage and choreographed, that you know, she did
Speaker 5: stand out amongst aprs I've talked to for being on
Speaker 5: certainly the far more cautious end of the spectrum. There
Speaker 5: are definitely some politicians that are much looser and are
Speaker 5: more willing to you know, take the good with the bad,
Speaker 5: you know, including Donald Trump is very is basically on
Speaker 5: the opposite end of the spectrum, where in some ways
Speaker 5: his lack of discipline can get him in trouble, but
Speaker 5: he also is more willing to just sort of let
Speaker 5: it fly and move on to the next thing if
Speaker 5: things didn't go well.
Speaker 2: Alex Thompson from Axios, thanks for your time today.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. It was great to be on.
Speaker 6: You.
Speaker 1: Bet Alex there, I would talk to him again.
Speaker 2: There is a there's an interesting thing that he I
Speaker 2: was just thinking about as he was making that last point.
Speaker 3: It's we'll come back and do it. How about that.
Speaker 3: We don't want to blow over time.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, live this week in Chicago for the Democratic
Speaker 2: National Convention here at United Center. There are other things
Speaker 2: going on, other stories that we have been talking about.
Speaker 2: For example, the American intelligence agencies now say, in fact
Speaker 2: it was Iran that was responsible for hacking into former
Speaker 2: President Trump's campaign and trying to breach the Biden Harris campaign.
Speaker 3: It was widely expected, not a surprise.
Speaker 2: It comes just a couple of days after Roger Stone
Speaker 2: revealed that it was his hot mail and Gmail accounts
Speaker 2: that had been compromised, allowed some hackers to impersonate him
Speaker 2: and get some access to emails of the campaign aids.
Speaker 2: And there was a follow up to a story that
Speaker 2: we talked about last week out of Galveston, Texas. This
Speaker 2: was a jury the parents of a teenage school shooter
Speaker 2: were on trial. Then it was a civil trial, and
Speaker 2: the parents were Antonius and Rose. They were accused of
Speaker 2: being negligent and allowing their son, Demetrius, to get a
Speaker 2: weapon from their home and for not warning school officials
Speaker 2: or police about the fact that his mental.
Speaker 3: State was deteriorating.
Speaker 2: A judge, sorry, a jury yesterday found that the parents
Speaker 2: were not liable for any part of the violence, and
Speaker 2: therefore an ending that that civil suit. It turns out
Speaker 2: that the kid, Demetrius the son did, was found I
Speaker 2: should say liable.
Speaker 3: The company that.
Speaker 2: Sold him the ammunition, Lucky Gunner, was also liable. So
Speaker 2: even though he was too young to buy the ammunition
Speaker 2: is part of the reason. And then Lucky Gunner sold
Speaker 2: it to him. They were liable for deaths and injuries.
Speaker 2: And the families were awarded three hundred and thirty million
Speaker 2: dollars in damages.
Speaker 1: From what who's going to pay that?
Speaker 2: Maybe the gun company has or the company, I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's a store specifically. They've got insurance, I suppose,
Speaker 2: but you're not going to You're not going to get
Speaker 2: any money out of that kid.
Speaker 3: He's seventeen, eighteen years old now and in jail.
Speaker 1: Remember Hulk Hogan was at the RNC. Yeah, well he's
Speaker 1: blaming it on alcohol. He's talking about performing one of
Speaker 1: his famous wrestling moves on Kamala Harris. He was at
Speaker 1: the Thirsty Cowboy in Medina, Ohio, promoting his new beer.
Speaker 1: This happened on Monday night. Apparently he grabs the mic
Speaker 1: and starts firing up the crowd, and things got a
Speaker 1: little off track. He asked the place you want me
Speaker 1: to body slam Kamala, Harris, You want me to drop
Speaker 1: the leg on Kamala? And the crowd eats all of
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 3: Of course they do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 6: I can't do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not great. It's where we're at, folks.
Speaker 2: The other thing that we've been asking for repeatedly is
Speaker 2: just for the asteroid.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, is there a good asteroid headed here?
Speaker 2: News, Well, it's possible, and it's better than that because
Speaker 2: whatever objects we're looking at that has been discovered by
Speaker 2: civilian astronomers analyzing information from one of the NASA telescopes,
Speaker 2: they say, have they have found a unique celestial object
Speaker 2: caught hurtling through space at a million miles an hour.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fast, and it's massive.
Speaker 2: It's approximately twenty seven thousand times the size of Earth.
Speaker 1: Oh, that'll wipe us.
Speaker 2: So we would be a bug on the windshield or
Speaker 2: whatever this thing is.
Speaker 3: We wondn't even know, no idea.
Speaker 1: That's kind of best case scenario, isn't it.
Speaker 2: This new object, they said, is called c wise Cise
Speaker 2: j one two four nine not yet identified by NASA experts,
Speaker 2: but some of the people who are looking at the
Speaker 2: information from NASA telescopes believe that, in fact, it could
Speaker 2: be headed through our fetalax.
Speaker 1: I have a fun story that's not politics, Okay, tod
Speaker 1: I saw this in the Washington Post this morning. They
Speaker 1: say it's a new loneliness cure. Remember we've talked about
Speaker 1: how dangerous loneliness is, how bad for your health, it is,
Speaker 1: all of it.
Speaker 3: Well, now there.
Speaker 1: Are apps that will match you with strangers for a meal.
Speaker 1: Several services are trying to help isolated remote workers and
Speaker 1: others find offline friends.
Speaker 3: Well, one step to that is to go back to work.
Speaker 1: In July. Yeses in July. The dating app Bumble, which
Speaker 1: does have modes for networking and friend fighting. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: you're just trying to have sex with those people that
Speaker 1: you claim you want to be their friend.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, sometimes, you know, that's how friendship start.
Speaker 1: So it completed its acquisition of Geneva and app designed
Speaker 1: to help people make new friends to spend time with offline.
Speaker 1: That's how friendships start. Who have you ever had sex
Speaker 1: with that then just became your friend?
Speaker 3: It goes back to the when.
Speaker 1: Harry met Sally, conundrum of can men and women just
Speaker 1: be friends?
Speaker 3: Can they?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 1: But to my question, have you ever had sex with
Speaker 1: someone and then they became your friend?
Speaker 3: No? No, I think my wife is friendly.
Speaker 1: Yes, but you still have sex with her.
Speaker 3: That's a good point.
Speaker 1: You can't have continued the sex if you're just friends.
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 2: I don't like your rules for one thing, but I'll
Speaker 2: go with it for now.
Speaker 3: I'll go with it for now.
Speaker 1: It's refreshing not to talk about politics.
Speaker 3: When we come back.
Speaker 2: We are trying to effort an interview with Congressman Dean Phillips,
Speaker 2: by the way, speaking of getting screwed by the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Price he's allowed in here. I mean, he tried to
Speaker 1: get rid of Biden two years ago, and you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people this party didn't talk to him anymore.
Speaker 1: They may have had sex and didn't become friends.
Speaker 2: So anyway, he's in the building here. We're trying to
Speaker 2: get him to come over and talk more about Also.
Speaker 1: Conan Nolan from NBC four caught up with him this
Speaker 1: morning at the California delegation breakfast where he was reporting.
Speaker 1: Did an interview with him because he's covered these things
Speaker 1: since eighty four, so he's got some great insight into
Speaker 1: these conventions and great moments in convention history.
Speaker 2: Live today in Chicago for day two of the Democratic
Speaker 2: National Convention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about seeing Dean Phillips in the hall here,
Speaker 1: and we actually quipped, I'm surprised Dean Phillips gotten invites.
Speaker 1: I mean, two years ago, you were one of the first,
Speaker 1: if not the first, person to kind of have a
Speaker 1: little bit of concern over a second term for this president.
Speaker 6: A lot of bit of concern.
Speaker 7: The nice thing is I've been invited back to the
Speaker 7: popular Kids table and the Cafeteria's kind of a nice
Speaker 7: you know. I actually was not even planning to come
Speaker 7: to the convention. Last minute decided I would, and I'm
Speaker 7: so glad I did because it restored my faith in
Speaker 7: a lot of people that had been disappointing to me.
Speaker 7: High fives, hugs and handshakes, and just a reminder that
Speaker 7: when you walk through the rain, you might find the rainbow,
Speaker 7: and I seem to have done so. And a joyous
Speaker 7: couple of days here so far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to add that was going to
Speaker 2: be my first question. Is in your opinion, is the
Speaker 2: party unified right now?
Speaker 6: It sure seems like it.
Speaker 7: You know, I'm much more accustomed, as our listeners to
Speaker 7: a party that seems to be in disarray. More often,
Speaker 7: there seems to be a little bit of a pendulum
Speaker 7: shift where we are consolidating. I think the way that
Speaker 7: Kamala Harris consolidated democratic support so rapidly is a hallmark
Speaker 7: of leadership.
Speaker 6: I was surprised by it. I think some colleagues were
Speaker 6: as well.
Speaker 7: And yes, I'd argued for change for the better part
Speaker 7: of a year and a half and it was a
Speaker 7: lonely argument. We have a conventional wisdom that says you
Speaker 7: never take on an incumbent, and I said, even if
Speaker 7: the incumbent it's going to lose a historically important election.
Speaker 7: And people are so reluctant to challenge that orthodoxy out
Speaker 7: of fear of losing their political careers. I was one
Speaker 7: of the few that I think was in a position
Speaker 7: to do so. I have, but that's fine, it was
Speaker 7: worth it.
Speaker 1: I was a big fan of yours because of that,
Speaker 1: Because it seems like there is this coronation, or there's
Speaker 1: this you know, this this pathway to the throne. You
Speaker 1: know and just ask you know, Bernie Sanders about it.
Speaker 1: And it just seems like there have been candidates have
Speaker 1: been sandbagged by their own party and the own party rules,
Speaker 1: and I just hate that as a voter, I want
Speaker 1: to be able to have a say. I don't want
Speaker 1: the machine to pick the candidate. And so when you
Speaker 1: came out and said that, it was refreshing, and I
Speaker 1: think it started a lot of conversations. Have you gotten
Speaker 1: any I'm sorries you were rights?
Speaker 6: I have gotten a lot of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I didn't do this to attract sories or apologies, but
Speaker 7: I have and from people that actually surprised me proactively
Speaker 7: coming up to do so. I don't need to name names,
Speaker 7: but that wasn't the mission. I was trying to be
Speaker 7: Paul Revere more than a George Washington, if you will.
Speaker 7: But I gotta reflect on what you just said. That's
Speaker 7: my frustration that we have two political parties private corporations
Speaker 7: that are much better at suppressing competition when it's helpful
Speaker 7: than they are promoting it. And that's because we still
Speaker 7: are affording a handful of Americans on the right and
Speaker 7: the left with I think a little bit too much
Speaker 7: power and these conventions used to be where the candidate
Speaker 7: was selected. We didn't used to have primaries. This is
Speaker 7: where the work was done. That's why they called it
Speaker 7: in the smoke filled room. So my argument is, either
Speaker 7: we entrust voters to really make this decision, and if so,
Speaker 7: you got to get out and vote. When only you
Speaker 7: let when you let the far left and far right
Speaker 7: choose the candidates, why in the world would we think
Speaker 7: we have people of moderation and centrism and maybe in
Speaker 7: capacity in November. Too often we don't. So I'm glad
Speaker 7: you refer to that, because that is the ultimate mission.
Speaker 7: Joe Biden happened to be the man. This happened to
Speaker 7: be the season, but this is something bigger, and I
Speaker 7: intended to dedicate time in the future too, inspiring more competition,
Speaker 7: because absent it, that's the vitamin of democracy.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, I tied Kamala Harris in terms of the number
Speaker 2: of delegates that.
Speaker 3: Received in the primaries.
Speaker 2: You at least got four delegates during the primaries. There
Speaker 2: that's I think that still should be part of the conversation,
Speaker 2: which is she did not get the approval of the
Speaker 2: Democratic voters.
Speaker 3: To be in the position that she's in now.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that she shouldn't or she doesn't deserve it,
Speaker 2: but it is a very different process that takes place
Speaker 2: than we've seen in the recent past.
Speaker 6: And you're right, and I feel the same way.
Speaker 7: But if you recall when I actually when this occurred,
Speaker 7: when the president announced he wouldn't be running again, I
Speaker 7: immediately called for a series of four town halls, even
Speaker 7: if only in three weeks. My point was let each
Speaker 7: region of the country host Democratic delegates who had already
Speaker 7: been selected, but entertain some other candidates, including the vice president.
Speaker 7: That didn't happen, but I agree with you, generally speaking,
Speaker 7: we should have competitions. It wasn't in the best interest
Speaker 7: of the party. I do think what has transpired is
Speaker 7: actually probably a good thing for Democrats.
Speaker 6: But in the future that's what we need to do.
Speaker 7: And I should also reflect on the fact that this
Speaker 7: compressed timeline one hundred days or so, it kind of
Speaker 7: feels right, these two year cycles of NonStop paigning. Let
Speaker 7: me tell you, as someone who's kind of had to
Speaker 7: do it, it's not.
Speaker 6: Helping this country right.
Speaker 7: Most countries figure out how to do it in really
Speaker 7: short windows, and there's something kind of refreshing about that.
Speaker 7: So I think maybe things that have happened recently, if
Speaker 7: we employ them in the future, could be really beneficial.
Speaker 1: Do you think it is just a conservative slash Republican
Speaker 1: call for her to sit down for an interview or
Speaker 1: do you think that voters deserve to hear her in
Speaker 1: her own words, not on a teleprompter, off the cuff,
Speaker 1: about what she believes.
Speaker 7: There's no question voters are entitled to and she will
Speaker 7: have to answer to them in unscripted moments, and that
Speaker 7: will come. And I understand that if I were a Republican,
Speaker 7: I'd be calling for the same thing. And I understand
Speaker 7: with that said, I think, you know, this is the
Speaker 7: coming out party, and I think that this honeymoon phase,
Speaker 7: which has been quite remarkable, I'm sure for her and
Speaker 7: Tim Wallas, you know, we'll probably dissipate, and then she
Speaker 7: will have to issue her platform and our reconcile policy,
Speaker 7: and to your point, ask subjecting ourselves to interviews, and
Speaker 7: I you know, I know from experience there are times
Speaker 7: where it may not be politically advantageous to engage in
Speaker 7: debate or to consent to interviews, But.
Speaker 6: That doesn't matter.
Speaker 7: You know, this is a democracy that begs for you
Speaker 7: two and so many others here who make their you know,
Speaker 7: their lives, help and democracy, and every single candidate should
Speaker 7: consent to it. And I'm really troubled by the fact
Speaker 7: that even on the debate stage now it's being managed
Speaker 7: by the campaigns themselves. That should be independent and it
Speaker 7: should not be up to the candidates to decide how
Speaker 7: American voters assess them. It should be up to American
Speaker 7: voters to tell the candidates how we.
Speaker 2: Do so, how does a voice like yours get heard
Speaker 2: in that mechanism that is a party.
Speaker 3: I mean, you talk about it and refer to it
Speaker 3: as a corporation.
Speaker 2: That is not what we think about when we think
Speaker 2: about parties. We think about those dark, you know, smoke
Speaker 2: filled rooms and things like that, where everybody's voice is heard.
Speaker 3: That's not the way it works. Industry.
Speaker 1: There was like a great Freakonomics podcast about this and
Speaker 1: about how we have no say and you're right, and you.
Speaker 7: Know, think of me as I was a middle manager
Speaker 7: and a large corporation that challenged the CEO, and like
Speaker 7: private corporations do, they don't take kindly to that. And
Speaker 7: because their private they can do whatever they want with
Speaker 7: that middle manager. But the middle manager can also you know, cry,
Speaker 7: you know, call bs and go to the press, and
Speaker 7: that there's.
Speaker 6: A little bit of a tuggle war.
Speaker 3: But that is you still get provided to the company.
Speaker 7: Picnic Well, to your point, I think I came in
Speaker 7: second place here in the delectaty. They wouldn't know that, right,
Speaker 7: you know, it's not like I got an invitation to speak.
Speaker 7: But that's not you know, that wasn't the objective. And
Speaker 7: I'm not going to play by the rules as they
Speaker 7: exist because I think it's broken. I think we need
Speaker 7: to focus on how we change them to have more dissent,
Speaker 7: not less. You know, whether it's protesters, whether it's people
Speaker 7: in the party that have different perspectives. You know, we're
Speaker 7: not represent neither parties representing the majority of America right now.
Speaker 6: Let's just get to the point.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's why I think fifty one percent of Americans
Speaker 7: are now declared independence. As an entrepreneur, I've never seen
Speaker 7: a market opportunity like I see in front of us
Speaker 7: right now in the political industry, which is now dominated
Speaker 7: by a duopoly. So there's a there there. And to
Speaker 7: answer your question, no, it's not easy to get platform.
Speaker 7: MSNBC did not invite me on one time. From October
Speaker 7: when I declared my candidacy to this very day. The
Speaker 7: only time I had an MSNBC interview was the day
Speaker 7: after the South Carolina primary, which was Joe Biden's massive victory.
Speaker 7: So you get a sense of how this environment works,
Speaker 7: how the relationships work, and most importantly, how perverse the
Speaker 7: incentives are, including the right and left media.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a real conversation about how the media protected
Speaker 1: a president who had no chance of serving another four
Speaker 1: and a half years. It's just you know, your eyes
Speaker 1: tell you. We all watch that debate. It's common sense.
Speaker 1: We know what we saw, the fact that they were
Speaker 1: spinning oh behind the scenes, you can't keep up with him.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, don't lie to us.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: And I think that there's such distrust with the media
Speaker 1: for having shielded a onions like yours, whether whether it's
Speaker 1: MSNBC or what have you. And it hasn't really been
Speaker 1: felt yet because we're in this whirlwind. But that's going
Speaker 1: to be a conversation that's had, and if I can.
Speaker 7: Speak to that as a member of Congress. You know,
Speaker 7: the game is played probably better than I do. You know,
Speaker 7: there are a lot of media outlets, especially in Washington,
Speaker 7: whose lifeblood.
Speaker 6: Is access to the White House.
Speaker 7: So if you if you get out of line or
Speaker 7: you bother them, they're not going to afford you the talent,
Speaker 7: the leaks the information.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing with the NFL exactly.
Speaker 7: That's an interesting embarrassary. So you get the point that
Speaker 7: that's why. And by the way, yeah, the media dropped
Speaker 7: the ball. You know, the New York Times started getting
Speaker 7: a little bit more interested in that story, and then
Speaker 7: they stonewalled them. You know, they kept me off the airwaves,
Speaker 7: that at least the left leaning airwaves. And that's how
Speaker 7: the game works. So independent, that's the perverse and sentence.
Speaker 7: The media has got to be independent. And the same
Speaker 7: thing with politics. Why are we punishing courage and rewarding cowardice.
Speaker 7: That's shameful in both my in my business and yours.
Speaker 7: And that's I think we got to some light on.
Speaker 2: We're talking with Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips.
Speaker 3: Can you hang on for one more segment. I'd love
Speaker 3: to have a couple more questions that came to mind.
Speaker 3: Absolutely all right, We're talking again.
Speaker 2: Dean Phillips four delegates during the primaries, and he's here
Speaker 2: in Chicago for.
Speaker 3: The Democratic National Convention.
Speaker 2: We'll come back with more with the congressman in just
Speaker 2: a couple of moments here.
Speaker 3: You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
Speaker 2: You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
Speaker 2: forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
Speaker 2: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.