Claire McCaskill welcomes former Pennsylvania Congressman Charlie Dent as her co-host this week. Together, they lay out a framework for how to reach the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Then, Trymaine Lee, MSNBC correspondent and host of the podcast Into America joins to discuss how Black male voters are feeling about the candidates this election; and how, if it all, their voices are represented within the major parties. Then, a look ahead at tonight’s CNN interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, her first as the Democratic nominee. And we’ll wrap up with a conversation on the future of the Republican Party.
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Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
(BEGIN AUDIO)
Claire McCaskill: Hello and welcome to “How to Win 2024.” It’s Thursday morning on August 29th. I’m Claire McCaskill. I’m here with my guest host today, former Republican Congressman of Pennsylvania’s 15th district, Charlie Dent. Hey, Charlie.
Charlie Dent: Hi, Claire. Great to be with you. Thanks for having me. And go, Eagles.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah. Okay, so on to the episode today. We’re now less than 70 days out. It’s hard to believe. This has been quite the whirlwind. I would call it a roller coaster and it has been quite a political summer for those of us who have a D behind our names. And Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are giving their first sit down interview tonight on CNN. We’ll talk about what kind of message Harris and Walz should deliver now that some of all of the quote, unquote “good vibes” from Chicago are beginning to dissipate somewhat. We’ll also talk about my co-host’s home state of Pennsylvania, which is the epicenter of this campaign. If you’re wondering where Trump or Vance or Harris or Walz is on any given day, if you guessed Pennsylvania, you’ll be right. Because almost every day, one of them is in Pennsylvania. It is an incredibly important state in this election. And we’re going to talk to Charlie because he knows Pennsylvania like no one else knows Pennsylvania, except maybe my friend, Bob Casey.
And we’re also going to talk a little bit with Trymaine Lee, who is an MSNBC correspondent and host of our sister podcast, “Into America,” about new reporting coming out of the Democratic convention on how Black male voters are feeling about this election and whether or not Harris and Walz have something to worry about in that very important part of the Democratic coalition. But first, Charlie, let’s talk strategy. We’ve been in this podcast trying to have a little segment called “If I Were in the Room,” putting our election expertise on top of what’s going on in these campaigns and giving our best advice over what it would take for them to do at this moment in order for them to win in 2024.
Charlie Dent: Well, at least in terms of Pennsylvania, I would have told them they need to run up the score in the Philadelphia media market. That’s where probably 40% of all votes in Pennsylvania are, the city of Philadelphia, the four suburban collar counties, but I could take that even further to my old area, the Lehigh Valley and in the Berks and Lancaster counties, which really represent the Philadelphia media market. Again, somewhere around 40% of all votes. She will need to run the score up not only in the city, but particularly those collar counties around Philadelphia. So that would be my main advice. They would also need to spend a lot of time in the Lehigh Valley, particularly Northampton County, which is probably the ultimate bellwether county, not only in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but in the country. That county went for Barack Obama in 2012, Donald Trump in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and it went very narrowly in each case. Whoever wins that county will in all likelihood win the commonwealth and in all likelihood win the presidency.
Claire McCaskill: So, tell us about that county.
Charlie Dent: Sure.
Claire McCaskill: Walk us down the streets of that county and what is the makeup of that county? Is it suburban, ex-urban? A mix, what is it?
Charlie Dent: It’s a mix. It includes the cities of Bethlehem and Easton. It’s part of the greater Lehigh Valley area, which is about 800,000 people. The county’s population is probably around 350,000 people right now. It’s an industrial area, but an interesting mix of urban, suburban, and rural communities. It’s largely White, but a significant African-American population in the city of Easton, significant Hispanic population in the city of Bethlehem. But a lot of ethnic White, old time, a lot of old Italians, Slovak. It’s just a tremendous county to get a sense. There used to be a lot of working class Democrats there, let’s put it that way. Many legacy steel families in that area. But it also has a lot of interesting people coming in from New Jersey and New York. It’s right on the state line with New Jersey, and there are a lot of people now who commute in New Jersey every day or into New York City even. So that’s kind of the county.
Claire McCaskill: I wanted to ask you about Pennsylvania and voter fatigue because of the hyper concentration of resources in Pennsylvania, because of its importance. I know how tired people must be already of all of the advertising being bombarded on every screen they look at, whether it’s their phone, whether it’s their laptop, whether it’s a TV, they are really getting hit. How do you factor that into what these campaigns should be doing? How would you advise them on their messaging in a county like Northampton for the last, you know, especially last 30 days of the campaign?
Charlie Dent: Well, let me just say they are getting just bombarded with ads. I’m sitting down here at the Jersey Shore, it’s part of the Philadelphia media market. Constantly, if you turn on the US Open or any cable network, all you see are political commercials for the presidential race or for the Senate race in Pennsylvania. That’s it. That’s pretty much all the advertising. If I were advising Harris, I would tell her and Walz, you know, keep pounding away on the issues of freedom, particularly women’s reproductive rights. I think it’s a very strong issue in that Philadelphia media market. They can’t hit that issue enough. And probably I would tell her to keep hitting Trump on his erratic behavior, not just January 6th, but just his erratic nature in general. If you’re Trump, I would advise them you keep pounding Harris on inflation, which they’re doing inflation, the economy. They’re running ads right now, just pounding her on her support of Bidenomics. I would also hit her on the border, although Harris is able to counterpunch because of Trump’s role in taking down the bipartisan border bill, which is a good piece of legislation. But Trump still has some advantages on the border and the economy. That’s how they’re playing this game right now. So it’s really a matter of what voters care more about going into this election in the final 70 days or so.
Claire McCaskill: The way Pennsylvania is being bombarded, I have a really vivid memory of Susan Collins’ Senate race when all kinds of people came up to Maine from New York to knock on doors for her Democratic opponent. And in Maine, they figured out that all these license plates were from New York, maybe even from Pennsylvania, not from Maine.
Charlie Dent: Right.
Claire McCaskill: And it actually hurt the Democratic candidate that so many volunteers were showing up that weren’t Mainers, but do you see that happening in Pennsylvania? Has that happened before? Should we do a cautionary note to everyone? I mean, I have a stepdaughter that lives in Portland, Oregon, and she texted me the other day, I’m going to Pennsylvania to volunteer. Well, wait a minute. Not sure that that necessarily is the best idea. What’s your take on that?
Charlie Dent: Well, look, Maine is a slightly different animal than Pennsylvania. It’s a smaller rural state. Out of towners are going to be more easily noticed than maybe in Philadelphia, in the collar counties of Philly where it’s very heavily populated, densely populated. Again, depending where you’re walking, I mean, it’s never good to advertise that you’re a volunteer from out of state. I mean, don’t do it. I mean, I would say if you’re going to go and work on a campaign, sure, come on in, work. They’ll put you to work, but try to at least pretend that you’re from the area.
Claire McCaskill: She’s my family. Maybe I should advise her, even though it will pain me to put on an Eagles shirt when she’s going door to door. You know, that would be very difficult for these Chiefs fan to give that advice, but maybe that’s the best advice to give to get some local —
Charlie Dent: Hey, you guys won the Super Bowl. What are you complaining about? I mean, you guys won. We lost, okay?
Claire McCaskill: I know, but we’re obnoxious winners.
Charlie Dent: Well, we’re bad winners too, by the way, in Philadelphia.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah. Listen, I was at the Super Bowl with you guys out in Arizona, and your fans were fricking obnoxious, Charlie Dent.
Charlie Dent: And they’re quite proud of it too.
Claire McCaskill: Oh my goodness. If I heard that song one more time, I think I was going to puke.
Charlie Dent: Fly Eagles Fly.
Claire McCaskill: No, Fly Eagles Fly. Right. All right, so we’re going to take a short break here and we will be back and we’re going to check in with MSNBC correspondent, host of “Into America,” Trymaine Lee, to get a sense of how Black male voters are feeling about their options this fall. You know, we were supposed to talk about RFK, but I’ve just taken a sworn oath to never talk about it again. Just go away and leave us alone. We’ll be back in just a minute.
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Claire McCaskill: Welcome back. My co-host, former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent, is still with me. Charlie, now that the excitement of the convention is firmly in the rearview mirror, we want to start looking at how different voting coalitions are feeling as we head into the final months of the campaign. And in the Democratic Party, if the coalitions are not happy, we don’t win. It’s just that simple. This week, we asked Trymaine Lee to join us to get his perspective on how Black men are feeling, what their concerns are and whether Harris or Trump are gaining ground and whether or not they are messaging in a way that is resonating with Black men. He is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award winner, a correspondent for MSNBC and hosts our sister podcast, “Into America.” Trymaine Lee, welcome. We’re really honored that you joined us today.
Trymaine Lee: Oh, thank you so much for having me. The pleasure is absolutely mine. So thank you for having me.
Claire McCaskill: So you joined Atlanta-based Black Man Lab in Chicago last week during the convention. Why don’t you download what you learned from that? We always do a segment in this podcast if we were in the room. I want you to be in the room with the Harris-Walz campaign and tell them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, but what they need to hear.
Trymaine Lee: Well, first of all, big shout to the Black Man Lab. It’s an amazing organization because what they’ve managed to do is gather a cross-section of Black men that you rarely would have the opportunity to gather in one room, cross-generational. So you had young guys and older guys and guys in between, cross class. You had guys who are working class and lawyers and activists all in one room together. And so the energy already is something unique to see this kind of brotherhood and fellowship and real community. But what you heard in the room was certainly some excitement around VP Kamala Harris assuming the top of the ticket, right? But when you’re in these spaces and having the kind of conversations where it is a safe space and Black men are speaking to each other in a way that you know, we don’t often do in the open, right? It’s kind of family business. There’s not just really concern around Kamala Harris. It’s the politics more broadly.
This idea that even the Democratic Party, you might see politicians when it’s time to get their votes and you might see them in church and their souls to the polls and all these other mechanisms that only come around periodically. But a sense that, you know, the politics of America are disconnected at best and at worst, violent or hostile towards Black men in particular. And so there’s this feeling of certainly a number of the men were, you know, relieved that, that Joe Biden was no longer the top of the ticket. They just couldn’t connect to him or Donald Trump. So there is a, again, seeing Kamala Harris, a Black woman, riding to the top of ticket is one thing. But then beyond that, they were torn because they feel that they’re forced in this two party situation and not truly feeling like either party really either represents them or actually care about them, right? And so there was a lot of that kind of nuance that I think you have to be in the room to experience, you have to go and have those conversations, and still the feeling that far too few politicians are actually going to these communities and have these conversations.
Charlie Dent: Might I just throw something out here? I’m trying to understand what is motivating a lot of Black men, particularly younger Black men, in terms of how they vote. We have obviously racial divides in the country, but it seems to me much of the divides in the country right now are based on educational attainment levels, those with college degrees and those without and it’s very stark. Now, Democrats are dominating among those with college degrees and Republicans with those without a degree. And that’s changed in my lifetime, by the way. When I was a younger man, Republicans tended to do better among college-educated voters and Democrats among non-college-educated voters. And so you hear that Trump is maybe doing a little bit better among African-American males, younger males. Why is that? Is it because they maybe identify as sort of more anti-elite, maybe many without a college degree and they’re behaving just like other voters without a college degree, White voters without a college degree, and maybe gravitating towards Trump. Do you see that as an issue?
Trymaine Lee: Well, I think to the first part of your question, there are these deep opportunity gaps and gaps of access to education. And when you look at the college landscape now, filled with Black women, right? But Black men, we lose Black men through the pipelines very early. If you don’t have a Black boy reading on level by the time you’re in third and fourth grade, the likelihood that they’ll be siphoned off into the criminal justice system, or what we call the missing. The millions of Black men who are, you know, have dropped out of society, who don’t have a job and don’t have education, and all of the stress and tension foments, and then we see it unfurling in different ways. I think there’s a stream of Black men who, there’s this appeal to the, and pardon my language, the big F-U that Donald Trump gives to the establishment, or appears to give the establishment, who guys who feel that there are all these burdens placed on their shoulders anyway, and no one truly cares. And at every turn there seem to be some evidence of that. Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, a lot of Black men know that if they’re walking down the street in a hoodie, the nice White liberal lady is also scared, right, and also going to call the cops on the neighbor. And also you might have that Black Lives Matter sign on your window or front porch, but you’re not moving next door to Black folks. You’re not sending your kids to schools where there’s a sizable portion of Black students. And so I think for a younger generation who don’t feel bound to make the better of the worst decisions, right? And so for a number of generations, Black folks say, listen, this isn’t ideal, but we have to survive another day. And so who is best positioned? And for a very long time, there’s been one party that has clearly operated more in the interest of Black folks writ-large, whether it’s from the state hiring Black folks. Remember, the state hired like 25% of Black folks with jobs. It was from the state. And so they understand when the other party is talking about small government, they’re talking about that. And they’re talking about the Department of Justice, they’re talking about all the things that have helped benefit Black folks. But a new generation says, I have to vote Democrat just because my father did and my mother did and my grandfather did without any questioning, without any critique, without any kind of real engagement, without seeing them, without knowing for a fact that the Democratic Party sees me beyond just souls to the polls and just this kind of fringe, marginalized maybe vote, but they’re not actually working for it. And so I think there’s a lot of that happening.
Claire McCaskill: So I’m curious, Trymaine, I see Trump’s racist behavior so clearly, but it’s not directed against me. I see, you know, whether it’s Black jobs, whether him saying that they’ve got to reinstate stop and frisk, whether it’s him saying that Black men can relate to him because of his mugshot, all of that stuff really lands with me. So I’m curious, is it landing with Black men, particularly young Black men? Are they seeing how racist he is? Or is his ability to give the finger to the system, is that giving him a free pass with these voters?
Trymaine Lee: I think that’s a nuanced kind of answer because when you’re having real, real conversations with Black men, we realize that, again, that there are White Democrats who are also racist. You deal with White racists all the time. Your manager might be a racist. He might just talk nice and might not just call you the N-word and might treat you just fine. So it’s like, we know that White people can be racist, not all White people, but White people can be racist. But I think it’s important for us also to level set here. Before Barack Obama, 12 to 13%, 14% of Black men voted for the Republican. They always got a certain percentage of the Black male vote. A lot of Black Republicans voted for Barack Obama because he was the first Black president.
So now we’re returning. And even at best, the Democratic Party is still going to get 80 plus percent of Black men. And so part of this conversation I’ve been having, it’s almost like in basketball, if you lose from a last second shot, you lost the game a long time ago. And so if it requires more than 80 plus percent of any one voting block to vote a certain way, if it depends on that, you might be in trouble. And so going back to that idea of these young Black folks who recognize his racism or not, again, it’s not the most offensive thing that Black men and young Black folks have to deal with. You and your hood, you and your bop, you and your music. It’s all offensive to a lot of White folks. But I think what we’re seeing here is a combination, and there are generational factors here at play. I think there is still a segment of Black voters who are going to do the practical pragmatic thing for not just Black Americans, but America, right? So they’re voting in a certain interest.
You know, it’s not unlike other institutions who haven’t found inroads into younger people and younger Black people in particular, right? And I think the Democratic Party, and again, that’s one thing. When I’ve been doing these reports across the country, and even among rooms full of Black folks, young and old, who say, listen, I’m going to vote for the Democrat no matter what, but hear the conversation. As soon as I put these videos out in social media, there is the hardcore partisans, Black and White, who are these men are ignorant, don’t they understand the threat? And the name calling doesn’t work. It forces people further in the corner, but we can’t even have a conversation. You have this feeling of beating Black men back into place if you have an idea. The idea of equality is maybe folks should be able to have bad ideas.
Claire McCaskill: Right.
Trymaine Lee: Right. In America, we understand the stakes are too high, sometimes they have bad ideas, but the equality of sometimes we have bad ideas. Are we questioning White men the same way? Are we questioning White women the same way? And so it’s just been a very interesting paradigm, but when you talk to these guys, I’m just shocked that the machine isn’t saying, wait a second here. First of all, let’s change their minds. Let’s go there. I did a report on the east side of Detroit, one of the toughest neighborhoods, with organizations that are on the ground every single day, they are civically engaged, and they’re saying, that we’re so disconnected from the system, it really doesn’t matter to us. We need to feed the people. We need to address some of their needs. The folks who are falling through the cracks, right? And we feel the violence of the weight of all the systems, the carceral system and lack of access to food and trying to take care of their families and their kids the same way anyone else, but no part of the system is really engaging them besides the actual cogs of the machine.
Claire McCaskill: So what issue? You know, I look at Trump wanting to do away with the Department of Education and I look that as we see the decline of public education. So many of the problems of public education have been centered in urban areas. And clearly we have not done something right in urban areas. I mean, when we have young Black boys reading two or three grades off level across the board in most urban communities, we have failed. Is that an issue? I mean, if you had to advise them, I know the student loan thing helps, at least in my conversations with young Black voters. A lot of them have been saddled with just untenable student loans, many of which they got and didn’t get much for it, candidly. If Kamala was sitting across the table from you right now, what would be the one or two issues you would say, you’ve got to really drive this home in your digital ads that are reaching young Black voters?
Trymaine Lee: You know, that’s complicated and I don’t want to wade too far into the water of advisor as a journalist, but I would say a couple of things. One, when it comes to the education piece, I think that it’s a very important issue. By the time you get to college, that’s a class thing, right? Most Black people aren’t graduating with four year degrees, right? And nothing wrong with those of us who have graduated, but it’s a different ball game. And when you’re talking about, you know, early education and how we’re losing young people and young boys in particular who aren’t arriving, you know, ready to learn necessarily, but by the time you get to education, you’re already a few steps behind. One of the biggest issues, and this doesn’t always come up specifically, but it’s part of the broader umbrella of issue that folks care about, is how many young people are arriving at school hungry, right? Do you feel safe? The march from your house to the school, are you faced by danger of police, danger of criminals, danger of stray bullets, right?
So, never hearing necessarily that the number one issue is early education, but it’s like, are we arriving in a space that kids are prepared and healthy enough to learn? And so I think that’s a big issue. But the one issue that came up time and time again, I think this is where there is some overlap with some of the appeals from Donald Trump. It’s the opportunities to build businesses, the opportunity to create wealth. And there’s this idea that’s been churning in our community for a very long time of creating generational wealth. You’ll hear it time and time again, because that was denied us for so long. From the very beginning, and we’re still trying to untether ourselves from all of the strictures that this society has placed around us. Not being able to own homes, the big red lines drawn around, all the segregation, all the things that depleted wealth, even though Black people helped fuel the growth in this country’s wealth. So it’s the opportunity gaps. When you talk to young people, they’re aspiring to open their own businesses, aspiring to be able to provide for their families and the generation that comes after. And so that’s part of the thing.
So even when we know the funny business that Donald Trump engaged in put his name on the stimulus checks, right? And it was held up because he had to get his name on that. And this idea that he is this successful businessman and he might be, you know, crass, but he’s successful at business. We know that not to be true. And we know this may have failed at every step. But the branding, and a lot of us grew up hearing Donald Trump synonymous with this kind of over consumption, materialism and all the things that Americans aspire to. And so that’s the piece there. Black men want to be able to take care of their families. And that’s the one thing that again, all of these other forces collude against us in doing, right? Have you been removed from your family because now you’re incarcerated because you’re trying to get some money because you didn’t have the education so now you’re hustling?
As they say, the streets are always hiring. Have you been sidelined from injury from police violence or community violence, right? And so the stress that Black men feel, because as we know, we are in this kind of gendered society. And as a man, you want to know for a fact that I can protect my family and I can provide for my family, right? Obviously, our gender roles have evolved and become a little more sophisticated and more equal, but still at its heart, men want to feel like you can do that. And this country hasn’t really ever supported us in doing so. And so I think that’s kind of undergirding a lot of the politics. So when you say a Democrat might be better off, well, show me how. Because whether it’s Barack Obama or Donald Trump, it’s hard for some people to measure how much better or worse their life is because it seems pretty much the same.
Charlie Dent: Yeah. Can I just say one thing too? In 2020, after George Floyd was killed, crime in Philadelphia really spiked, not just in the downtown business area, but in many areas that are predominantly Black. And Donald Trump did worse in every county in Pennsylvania, 66 out of 67 compared to 2016, except there’s one county he did marginally better in, even though he got crushed there, Philadelphia. And I assume that a lot of it was driven by the crime issue and that there were many people, I mean, enough people. I mean, African-Americans still went for Biden overwhelmingly, but enough of African-American males and Hispanic males. People were just angry about the crime. And I thought that’s the only reason why Trump did a little better in Philadelphia, unlike every other county where he did a little bit worse. Does that make any sense to you, Trymaine?
Trymaine Lee: It does make some sense to me. And again, I’m intimately familiar with Philadelphia. I grew up in South Jersey, right across the bridge. My first job was in the Black press, the “Philadelphia Tribune.”
Charlie Dent: Oh boy.
Trymaine Lee: First internship to “Philadelphia Daily News.” I’m an Eagles fan, right, so go Birds. Bird gang.
Claire McCaskill: Oh no, Lord. I’m outnumbered.
Charlie Dent: You’re a great American.
Claire McCaskill: Oh my God, at least we won.
Trymaine Lee: Listen, we’ll have to figure something out. Last year was an embarrassment. Charlie Dent: Yeah, I know.
Trymaine Lee: But Philadelphia, the poorest big city in the country, but also has a specific kind of diversity that you don’t find many places. So growing up, ethnic White folks who were still in the city.
Charlie Dent: Yep.
Trymaine Lee: Working class, White folks next to Black folks, Italians, Irish, Polish next to African-Americans, a heavy Black Muslim population. It’s the only city in the country with a majority Black Muslim population. But it’s also, again, because of everything that comes along, everything that’s adjacent with poverty, the violence and crime. There is something to this idea, I believe, when there is a sense of general lawlessness, right, a sense that it just feeds on itself. The police respond a certain kind of way, criminals respond a certain kind of way. And so I think part of that, Donald Trump, get out there and is aggressive and it was overwrought. And we know the pain that kind of rhetoric how it actually manifests in communities who already suffer it during the best of times. And so I think that message can work because people do feel it. But in certain communities, they’ve always felt it. But I think Philadelphia has a certain kind of mix of working class, ethnic Whites, and Black folks that I think there is some appeal with that.
Claire McCaskill: Well, I will tell you that in my experience, and I have a lot of it, I’m somebody who couldn’t have ever won statewide if I hadn’t gotten over 90% of the Black vote in Missouri, and I prided myself in not just showing up every six years. I will tell you that in my experience, the biggest mistake Republicans make when they come to looking at the Black vote is they somehow characterize it as one-dimensional or two-dimensional, instead as complicated as it is. And they underestimate how knowledgeable the Black community is about who represents them, about what is going on. To this day, if I walked into a grocery store and half the people there in Columbia, Missouri were Black and half were White, the Black people would be more knowledgeable about the issues. They would certainly feel free to come up and talk to me about the issues. They would immediately know who I was. And when I saw that Trump was going to do a campaign on menthol cigarettes, I thought, you know, really this guy is so underestimating Black men and how thoughtful and as you have said over and over again, how nuanced this really complicated world is right now when it comes to trying to reconnect with people who have found the door shut just about every corner they came around.
Trymaine Lee: I’ve always said this, that if not for the racism inherent, again, in American politics, but on one side in particular, if you remove the racism, there are a lot of conservative thinking Black people.
Claire McCaskill: Yep.
Trymaine Lee: Right? One party has been so bound for so long, not that everyone in the party is a racist, but if you’re an avowed racist, you know which side you’re going to be on. If you were able to remove that, even issues around the border, right? I’ve been in New Mexico and Arizona. We can’t get to the conversation about any kind of drain or not on the system because of all the racism in the conversation.
Claire McCaskill: Right.
Trymaine Lee: You can’t engage with industry issues because we can’t have an honest, thoughtful conversation about the realities because we know it’s fueled by racism. And so anyway, menthol cigarettes and your mug shot, that’s not going to do it for Black men.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, it’s not going to do it for Black men. Well, listen, Trymaine, it has been really great to have you today. I am grateful. I think these conversations are incredibly important. And I know you’re a journalist, so you can’t be in the room, but they’d be lucky to have you in the room. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Trymaine Lee: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Claire McCaskill: Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award winner and a correspondent for MSNBC News and hosts our sister podcast, “Into America.” Next up, how Kamala Harris can bring in more conservatives like Charlie Dent. Back in a moment.
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Claire McCaskill: Welcome back. Charlie, I want to spend a little bit of time in this last spotlight segment on the Republican Party and disaffected Republicans. But before we get to that, I wanted to briefly hit on the fact that tonight Kamala Harris is doing what they’ve been yelling at her to do, sitting down for an interview on CNN. She and the vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz, are going to sit down. Give me your two cents as to what they should be stressing in the interview tonight and whether you think this is as big a deal as the Republicans have made it.
Charlie Dent: Well, I think Kamala Harris just simply has to come off as being authentic, not make any mistakes, just answer questions, just demonstrate a broad and deep knowledge of the issues that are presented. I think that’s what she needs to do, that she can handle things in an unscripted way. That’s all this is really about. And again, not make any mistakes. I’d probably advise her to try to keep tacking to the center and not get too specific on policy. I think she’s going to have to try to explain why she has changed positions on some issues, Medicare for all, fracking, whatever other issues. She’s going to have to give an explanation other than she just changed for political reasons. She’s going to have to explain that a little bit. But as long as she doesn’t make any mistakes, as long as she seems authentic and no errors, I think that’s a win for her.
Claire McCaskill: I predict she’ll do fine. I’m biased on this. I believe if you’ve been a courtroom prosecutor, you are in the ultimate training ground to thinking on your feet and operating without a script. And she did that for many years. You just can’t have a script when you’re in the courtroom in the middle of a criminal trial. So, I think she’ll do fine. I’m kind of looking forward to watching tonight.
Charlie Dent: There’s one other thing she has to watch out for too, that she’s probably going to have to show that on the one hand, she’s loyal to Joe Biden and supports him and his agenda, but also distinguish where there are differences maybe. That’s a fine line to walk. It’s a tricky thing to do. I’m sure she can handle herself unscripted. I’m not worried about that, but kind of drawing out where she’s different from Biden is going to be a delicate matter for her.
Claire McCaskill: And that’s hard.
Charlie Dent: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: That’s hard stuff. because you don’t want to alienate the loyal Biden folks and we have legions of them in our party for all the right reasons, but you also have to tack to the middle and get those independent voters in those important places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So let’s talk about the Republican Party. We had 200 Republican leaders sign a letter. We’ve had many people that served in his administration refuse to endorse him. What do you think about disaffected Republicans that are rejecting Donald Trump. And what is it? Why isn’t Liz Cheney endorsing Harris? And why aren’t Kelly and Mattis and some of those folks and Romney, why aren’t they actually speaking to the specifics of this election in your opinion?
Charlie Dent: Well, for a variety of reasons. By the way, let me say straight up, in 2016, I was in Congress. I did not support Donald Trump. I said it publicly at the time. I didn’t vote for him. I wrote in somebody. And in 2020, I was out of Congress. and I publicly endorsed Joe Biden simply because I wanted to get rid of Donald Trump. Well, acknowledging that there were differences of opinion. In this election, I’m not voting for Donald Trump, but I haven’t endorsed Kamala Harris either. But I think there are a lot of Republicans right now who are very disaffected and dispirited. They’re unhappy with the direction of the party. The Republican Party is clearly divided. It is not evenly divided, but it is clearly divided. And you might say, well, let’s look at that Nikki Haley voter, for example, person like them who tend to be a bit more moderate. They might be college educated. They simply just do not like Trump the way he carries on, even if they might agree with some of his policies, but they have differences of opinion with him and his style.
And I think many Republicans right now who supported Joe Biden, I’ve talked to many, this felt like, you know, when I endorsed Joe Biden, I didn’t want anything. I wasn’t looking for anything, but I just never got the sense that they were fully appreciated. I think the Harris campaign is trying harder to reach out to Republicans in a more meaningful way than maybe the Biden campaign did back then. And so there were a lot of Republicans who just kind of felt like, well, Biden kind of tacked left. He said he was going to be a governor from the Senate. Well, he went for the Senate or the Democratic Party. They weren’t happy with the rescue plan. They thought it was overspending by hundreds of billions at that time. They were maybe unhappy about the student debt forgiveness and certainly the Afghanistan withdrawal. But for many people in the Republican Party still are thinking about policy. I mean, I get it. In 2020, I said it wasn’t about right or left, it was about right or wrong, that Trump was just wrong in so many ways. But I think we’ve kind of moved a little bit beyond that debate, that some of these Republicans are still thinking about policy. And while they can’t stand Trump, do they really want to go entirely with the Democrats who might pull the country in a direction they don’t like? It’s a tough thing for many of them right now. I mean, maybe for the Democrats, they win if these Republicans just sit it out. They’d rather have them vote for Harris as opposed to Trump. But if they just don’t vote at all, I guess that probably helps the Democratic candidate a little bit.
Claire McCaskill: So talk a little bit about Our Republican Legacy. And I know that my friend Jack Danforth is involved. What is Our Republican Legacy and what do you hope to accomplish and do you feel that if Trump is defeated in November, there’s a chance for the policy part of the Republican Party to take hold again, as opposed to the personality part?
Charlie Dent: Yeah, but the whole purpose of Our Republican Legacy established by your former Missourian Jack Danforth, he and Elton Simpson and Bill Cohen, we’re the kind of three ring leaders, and we have many other people who have signed up as well. But our objective is to try to get the Republican Party focused on five core principles. And we’re also trying to establish that an alternative narrative to MAGA. For too often, those people who have not been happy with Trump and the Republican Party have chosen silence. And I’ve always said, well, silence is not an alternative. Silence is silence, and that just simply allows Donald Trump and the MAGA argument to predominate and there’s been no pushback. And so we’re trying to create that pushback by talking about five core principles.
The Constitution, we believe in the rule of law, we believe in the peaceful transfer of power. We’re for orderly transitions. We found January 6th reprehensible. We’re for unity. We think this country is big, it’s diverse, and we need to bring people together, not break it apart. We believe in free markets. Now, we’re not Luddites. We’re not talking about 1850 or 1920s. We’re talking about modern reasonable regulation, but we believe in free markets. We find these tariffs that Trump is talking about is an abomination. And so we also think we have to start again talking about some type of fiscal responsibility. And our final principle, I would say, is we want to talk about constructive international engagement, you know, called peace through strength, but embracing allies, pushing back against ruthless autocrats like Vladimir Putin and it being more traditional in that sense, maybe in the Dwight Eisenhower sense of what the Republican Party became. From Dwight Eisenhower through Nixon, Reagan, Ford, the Bushes, et cetera. That’s where we were, and now we’ve got this isolationist, protectionist, nativist, and at times nihilistic mentality that’s dominating. So we’re trying to create this alternative. We’re looking beyond 2024. And one thing I like to always point out that we’re not telling people how to vote. We’re not telling them what to do. But I can tell you that virtually everybody in our group is disparate or disillusioned with the current direction of the party.
Claire McCaskill: So I’m curious, as I look at the organizations that I saw as kind of foundational to the Republican Party when I was in Washington. You know, like folks like The Heritage and Cato to some extent. But I look at all those organizations and they’ve either been sidelined or they’ve been totally taken over by MAGA. What I want to hear you talk about is with J.D. Vance as the V.P. nominee, let’s just assume for a moment that Trump loses. You’ve got people like J.D. Vance and you’ve got people like Josh Hawley who make Rand Paul look like a wannabe in terms of their view on some of the policies. I mean, I’m not sure Josh Hawley believes any of it. I don’t know about J.D. Vance. It doesn’t feel like to me he believes a lot of it. But are there going to be enough people that are so politically ambitious that they try to keep the MAGA majority and the Republican Party superior to the folks you’re talking about who believe in free markets and free trade and fiscal responsibility and smaller government and all the things that traditionally I think of as the Reagan Republican Party?
Charlie Dent: Yeah. And I also like to throw in the term social tolerance, that we should be more tolerant socially. Look, I was really disturbed by the Vance pick.
I thought, why would he select the chairman of the Ukraine Surrender Caucus, Russia Appeasement Caucus, to be the vice presidential running mate? I just thought that was really stunning for me. I’m not sure that a lot of these folks believe what they’re selling. I mean, these are people who are highly educated, many ivy league educated, and they’re talking what I’d consider to be populist nonsense. That is a dead end. And I think over time, they’re going to figure that out. There’s no future in this because what they’re trying to do is shrink the party. They’re not trying to reach out to people who are a little bit different than they are. They just want to double down on the people that they think Trump has. And look, Trump is the leader of the movement. A lot of people support Trump because they like Trump. I argue about what he has charisma, but he has an appeal to people. And this charisma he has is not necessarily transferable, say, to Ron DeSantis or to, you know, pick your favorite, MAGA wannabe. I don’t think it’s transferable.
So once Trump is off the stage, if that ever happens, I think that we’re going to have a real fight within this party about what the direction should look like, because I can make a very strong case that the party has seen nothing but defeat since 2016, since Trump took over. Look what happened in 2018, House goes away. The 2020, you lose the presidency and you lose the Senate. 2022, Republicans significantly underperform and we’ve seen nothing but defeat and a shrinking of the base and no appeal to more moderate voters. Ironically, I was the last pro-choice Republican in the House of Representatives. I got to tell you, I’m staggered that Trump is now trying to moderate on the abortion issue.
Claire McCaskill: Right.
Charlie Dent: I mean, I think it’s the right thing to do, but I mean, he’s obviously not the right messenger given how transactional —
Claire McCaskill: What he did.
Charlie Dent: But, you know, more funny about the whole thing is I was just reading the other day that some evangelicals are really upset that Trump is so unprincipled on abortion. I said, well, yeah, he’s the most transactional guy on the planet and you kind of deal with him. You kind of deal with him and now you’re shocked that he’s betraying you on this issue. But the point is, Trump did everything he could to overturn Roe v. Wade. Now he’s trying to moderate. I think the party does need to moderate on the issue, but again, the wrong messenger. So the party’s kind of in a funky place on a number of issues, whether it’s on spending or even on abortion. And then you have these guys like, look at what these state guys are doing on IVF and on the abortion question, even though I think most Republicans in Washington realize these are just losing issues for the party.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, and it is really fascinating to me because as somebody who’s been steeped in Missouri politics as long as I have, I mean, the Republican primary ads, we had lots of primaries in Missouri for governor, for all the statewide races. I mean, these primary ads, Charlie, you would not have believed how crazy they were. I mean, nutty.
Charlie Dent: Yeah, I would.
Claire McCaskill: And they are going so far into the darkness in terms of where they are. And of course our state, you know, the government tells a rape victim, she has to give birth to a rapist’s child, and they were not willing to even change that in the last session after Roe v. Wade was overturned. So it’s very extreme. It’ll be fascinating to see how this works going forward. and it has been great having you today. I admire you for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons is that you maintain some moderation on issues that was very difficult for you to do in your party. I have walked down that path before, and sometimes there are a lot of landmines, and you survived all those landmines and lived to tell about it, so good on you. Charlie Dent: Well, look, I went through 13 elections in my life, seven for Congress. I have to say I’m 13 and 0, undefeated and unindicted.
Claire McCaskill: Listen, it’s been great having you here today. Thank you so much. And we appreciate you taking the time to visit with us today. And we’ll circle back again, I hope, before the election or maybe after.
Charlie Dent: Very good. Thank you, Claire.
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Claire McCaskill: Thanks for joining us for today’s installment of “How to Win 2024.” And a big thanks to my co-host today, former Republican Congressman of Pennsylvania’s 15th, Charlie Dent. Before we head out, I want to remind you about MSNBC Premium. It’s a special subscription offering on Apple Podcasts. When you subscribe. You’ll get new episodes of “How to Win 2024” and all of MSNBC’s original podcasts ad free. Plus, exclusive bonus content every month. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple podcasts right from your phone or whatever device you’re listening on right now so you don’t miss a beat. This episode was produced by Max Jacobs and Vicki Vergolina. Janmaris Perez is our associate producer. Catherine Anderson is our audio engineer. Our head of audio production is Bryson Barnes. Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC Audio, and Rebecca Kutler is the senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC. Search for “How to Win 2024” wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series.