Podcast / See How They Run / Jul 27, 2024

Joe’s Out. Kamala’s In. What Now?

On this episode of See How They Run, Joan Walsh and Jeet Heer join the podcast to discuss week that changed everything about the 2024 election.

The Nation Podcasts
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Joe’s Out. Kamala’s In. What Now? | See How They Run
byThe Nation Magazine

On this episode of See How They Run, D.D. Guttenplan is joined by The Nation's Joan Walsh and Jeet Heer to discuss a week that changed everything about the 2024 election.

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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers' 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024, in Houston, Texas.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers’ 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024, in Houston, Texas.

(Montinique Monroe / Getty Images)

American politics now appears to be following the old rule about buses: You wait and wait for a seismic shock, and then three or four suddenly arrive at once.

So it proved this Sunday, when, just as the country was catching its breath from Donald Trump’s brush with death and his selection of J.D. Vance as his vice president, Joe Biden bowed to a relentless pressure campaign and announced that he was dropping out of the presidential race. In the blink of an eye, Biden consigned himself to history. Now there is only one name on everyone’s lips: Kamala Harris.

All of the old questions about Biden are moot. We have new questions to consider: Who will Harris’s VP pick be? What would her administration look like? And, most importantly: Can she unite a fracturing Democratic base, take on Trump, pull off one of the most stunning political comebacks we’ve ever seen, and become the first Black, Asian, female president in history—all in just over 100 days?

To discuss all that on this week’s episode of See How They Run, I’m thrilled to be joined by two of our national affairs correspondents: Jeet Heer, who has been closely following the frenzy of the past few weeks, and Joan Walsh, one of the country’s top Harris-ologists, who has been reporting on the vice president for decades and whose exclusive, must-read profile of Harris is the cover story of our August issue.

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Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth. 

The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more. 

But this journalism is possible only with your support.

This March, The Nation needs to raise $50,000 to ensure that we have the resources for reporting and analysis that sets the record straight and empowers people of conscience to organize. Will you donate today?

D.D. Guttenplan

D.D. Guttenplan is a special correspondent for The Nation and the former host of The Nation Podcast. He served as editor of the magazine from 2019 to 2025 and, prior to that, as an editor at large and London correspondent. His books include American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone, The Nation: A Biography, and The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority.

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